The Injian Ocean sets an’ smiles
So sof’, so bright, so bloomin’ blue;
There aren’t a wave for miles an’ miles
Excep’ the jiggle from the screw.
The ship is swep’, the day is done,
The bugle’s gone for smoke an’ play;
An’ black agin’ the settin’ sun
The Lascar sings, “Hum deckty hai!"

For to admire an’ for to see,
For to be’old this world so wide
It never done no good to me,
But I can’t drop it if I tried!

I see the sergeants pitchin’ quoits,
I ‘ear the women laugh an’ talk,
I spy upon the quarter-deck
The orficers an’ lydies walk.
I thinks about the things that was,
An’ leans an’ looks acrost the sea,
Till, spite of all the crowded ship,
There’s no one lef’ alive but me.

The things that was which I ’ave seen,
In barrick, camp, an’ action too,
I tells them over by myself,
An’ sometimes wonders if they’re true;
For they was odd most awful odd
But all the same now they are o’er,
There must be ‘eaps o’ plenty such,
An’ if I wait I’ll see some more.

Oh, I ’ave come upon the books,
An’ often broke a barrick rule,
An’ stood beside an’ watched myself
Be’avin’ like a bloomin’ fool.
I paid my price for findin’ out,
Nor never grutched the price I paid,
But sat in Clink without my boots,
Admirin’ ’ow the world was made.

Be’old a cloud upon the beam,
An’ ’umped above the sea appears
Old Aden, like a barrick-stove
That no one’s lit for years an’ years!
I passed by that when I began,
An’ I go ’ome the road I came,
A time-expired soldier-man
With six years’ service to ’is name.

My girl she said, “Oh, stay with me!”
My mother ’eld me to ’er breast.
They’ve never written none, an’ so
They must ’ave gone with all the rest
With all the rest which I ’ave seen
An’ found an’ known an’ met along.
I cannot say the things I feel,
But still I sing my evenin’ song:

For to admire an’ for to see,
For to be’old this world so wide
It never done no good to me,
But I can’t drop it if I tried!