O ailing Love, compose your struggling wing!
Confess you mortal; be content to die.
How better dead, than be this awkward thing
Dragging in dust its feathers of the sky,
Hitching and rearing, plunging beak to loam,
Upturned, disheveled, utt’ring a weak sound
Less proud than of the gull that rakes the foam,
Less kind than of the hawk that scours the ground.
While yet your awful beauty, even at bay,
Beats off the impious eye, the outstretched hand,
And what your hue or fashion none can say,
Vanish, be fled, leave me a wingless land . . .
Save where one moment down the quiet tide
Fades a white swan, with a black swan beside.

Oh, Grimsby is a pleasant town as any man may find,
An' Grimsby wives are thrifty wives, an' Grimsby girls are kind;
An' Grimsby lads have never yet been lads to lag behind
When there's men's work doin' on the North Sea ground.

An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie"…for the high tide's flowin',
An' off the misty waters a cold wind blowin';
Skipper's come aboard, an' it's time that we were goin',
An' there's fine fish waitin' on the North Sea ground!

Soles in the Silver Pit…an' there we'll let 'em lie!
Cod on the Dogger…oh, we'll fetch 'em by an' by!
War on the waters…an' it's time to serve an' die,
For there's wild work doin' on the North Sea ground.

An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie"…they want you at the trawlin'
(With your long sea-boots an' your tarry old tar— paulin);
All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin',
In the winter's weather off the North Sea ground.

It's well we've learned to laugh at fear (the sea has taught us how);
It's well we've shaken hands with death—we'll not be strangers now,
With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow,
An' the black spawn swimmin' on the North Sea ground.

Good luck to all our fightin' ships that rule the English sea;
Good luck to our brave merchantmen wherever they may be;
The sea it is their highway, and we've got to sweep it free
For the ships passin' over on the North Sea ground.

An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie"…for the sea wind's cryin',
"Time an' time to go where the herrin' gulls are flyin'"—
An' down below the stormy seas the dead men lyin',
Oh, the dead lyin' quiet on the North Sea ground!