Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/253

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THE BALLAD OF THE "BOLIVAR"

Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,
Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away—
We that took the "Bolivar" out across the Bay!

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland—met the winter gales—
Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.


Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,

All the coals adrift a deck, half the rails below

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