Ii

The Song of the Sou' Wester

The sun was lost in a leaden sky, And the shore lay under our lee; When a great Sou' Wester hurricane high Came rollicking up the sea. He played with the fleet as a boy with boats Till out for the Downs we ran, And he laugh'd with the roar of a thousand throats At the militant ways of man:

Oh! I am the enemy most of might, The other be who you please! Gunner and guns may all be right, Flags a-flying and armour tight, But I am the fellow you've first to fight-- The giant that swings the seas.

A dozen of middies were down below Chasing the X they love, While the table curtseyed long and slow And the lamps were giddy above.

The lesson was all of a ship and a shot, And some of it may have been true, But the word they heard and never forgot Was the word of the wind that blew:

Oh! I am the enemy most of might, The other be who you please! Gunner and guns may all be right, Flags a-flying and armour tight, But I am the fellow you've first to fight-- The giant that swings the seas.

The Middy with luck is a Captain soon, With luck he may hear one day His own big guns a-humming the tune "'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay." But wherever he goes, with friends or foes, And whatever may there befall, He'll hear for ever a voice he knows For ever defying them all:

Oh! I am the enemy most of might, The other be who you please! Gunner and guns may all be right, Flags a-flying and armour tight, But I am the fellow you've first to fight-- The giant that swings the seas.