They danced and they toasted the frigate's crew,
And sang of the guns and the men in blue.
Once more from Plymouth and Portsmouth towns the news has spread like fire,
Instead of the chaise and its sweating team, it's carried by miles of wire;
Though beer is scarce and tobacco dear, and no fiddlers to give a tune,
Men talk of the fleet that held the field, and prayed for a "First of June."
No song and no dance, but a quiet content
For the news that their great grey ships have sent.
Merchants sailed from the Port of Leith and passed by the Head of Skaw,
And the sea to them looked all the same from St. Abb's to the Danish shore;
But the skippers knew of the Fisher Bank and the fifteen-fathom patch;
You'd have heard of it too in Jutland, when they talked of the "last night's catch."
They worked and fished on the slippery decks
With never a thought of gun-swept wrecks.
Travellers sailed from the Port of Hull to land on Stavanger pier,
And they never looked at the soundings, or thought of the course to steer;
