Atlantic answered:—“Not from me!
You’d better ask the cold North Sea,
For he ran me down under all plain canvas.”
        (All round the Horn!)

The North Sea answered:—“He’s my man,
For he came to me when he began—
Frankie Drake in an open coaster.
        (All round the Sands!)

“I caught him young and I used him sore,
So you never shall startle Frankie more,
Without capsizing Earth and her waters.
        (All round the Sands!)

“I did not favour him at all.
I made him pull and I made him haul—
And stand his trick with the common sailors.
        (All round the Sands!)

“I froze him stiff and I fogged him blind,
And kicked him home with his road to find
By what he could see in a three-day snow-storm.
        (All round the Sands!)

“I learned him his trade o’ winter nights,
’Twixt Mardyk Fort and Dunkirk lights
On a five-knot tide with the forts a-firing.
        (All round the Sands!)

“Before his beard began to shoot,
I showed him the length of the Spaniard’s foot—
And I reckon he clapped the boot on it later.
        (All round the Sands!)

“If there’s a risk which you can make,
That’s worse than he was used to take
Nigh every week in the way of his business;
        (All round the Sands!)

“If there’s a trick that you can try,
Which he hasn’t met in time gone by,
Not once or twice, but ten times over;
        (All round the Sands!)

“If you can teach him aught that’s new,
        (A-hay 0!   To me 0!)
I’ll give you Bruges and Niewport too,
And the ten tall churches that stand between ’em!”
        Storm along my gallant Captains!
        (All round the Horn!)