In Dennis O’Halloran’s bar-room, down by Newcastle pier,
(Was ever ye down to Newcastle, lad?), I was sittin’ drinkin’ a beer,
An’ treatin’ a girl called Topsy (ye know the kind she’d be),
When somebody called from the doorway, “The Silberhorn’s going to sea!”
An’ I rose from my feet to see her, an’ Topsy I pushed aside,
For ye’ll see no ship like the Silberhorn go out wi’ every tide;
An’ I stood at the street-side starin’ to see the grand packet go by,
Wi’ the sunset bright on her beauty, an’ her ensign flutterin’ high.
I saw John Warren, her skipper, wi’ his eyes o’ windy grey,
An’ her first mate, Willie Dougal, an’ her second mate, Tom O’Shay,
An’ eight young bonny apprentice boys wavin’ the girls farewell,
An’ deep from the break of her fo’c’sle came the clang of her big iron bell.
As her bells broke out while she passed me a something gripped my breath,
As slow from her pier she glided, wi’ the evenin’ still as death;
The sun went under a cloud-bank, an’ the dusk came droppin’ down,
An’ the only sound was the laughter o’ the girls o’ Newcastle town.
They lowered the grand ship’s ensign, an’ she slipped away to the night,
Till all I could see in the darkness was the gleam of her binnacle light;
As the girls turned back to the bar-room clear over the steam there came
The long, high echoing sing-song of her chanteyman’s refrain.
“Good-bye, fare you well,” I heard it, an’ a cheer an’ an order loud,
As a lone star winked in the darkness from the rim of a driftin’ cloud;
An’ I called to Dennis O’Halloran to bring me a bottle o’ beer,
An’ I drank in the bar-room doorway to the ship gone out from her pier.
O’Halloran’s rang wi’ laughter, but chilly there came o’er me
A feel like the feel o’ the midnight when there’s drift ice on the sea;
An’ the fiddler started fiddlin’; an’ Topsy tossed her head:
“You buys me no drink, nor dances? You acts like a man what’s dead!”
So I called for a bottle for Topsy, an’ forgot the sailor’s way,
An’ never gave thought to the Silberhorn for many an’ many a day;
But when next I heard her mentioned I remembered the Newcastle pier
An’ the night when I’d drunk to her hearties in a bottle o’ Newcastle beer.
“Lost with all hands,” I read it; “Lost with all hands.” No more;
Never a word o’ the latitude, how far or how near the shore;
“Good-bye, fare you well,” came ringin’, an’ a cheer, an’ an order high,
From the grand fine packet that evenin’ goin’ out to the sea to die!
(Bill Adams)
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