The Good Ship Calibar

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Come all you dry land sailors and listen to me song
It’s only forty verses and I won’t detain yez long
It’s all about the adventures of this old Lisburn tar
Who sailed as man before the mast on the good ship Calibar.

2. The Calibar was a spanking craft it wasn’t rigged fore and aft
Her helm it stuck out far behind and her wheel was a great big shaft
With half a gale to fill her sail she do one knot per hour
She’s the fastest barge on the Lagan canal and she’s only one horsepower.

3. The captain was a strapping lad and he stood just four foot two
His eyes were black, his nose was broke and his hair was a Prussian blue.
He wore a leather medal that he’d won in the Crimea War
And the captain’s wife was the passenger’s cook on the good ship Calibar.

4. The captain said to me, me lads "Look here me lad" said he
"Would you like to be a sailiar and sail the seven seas
Would you like to be a sailiar and on foreign seas to roll
For we’re on the way to Portadown with half a ton of coal.

5. It was early the next morning the weather it being sublime
Whilst passing under the old Queen Bridge we heard the Albert Chime
Whilst going along by the Gasworks straight a very dangerous part
We ran aground on a lump of coal that wasn’t marked down on the chart.

6. Then all became confusion and the stormy winds did blow
The bosun slipped on an orange peel fell into the hold below
Put on more speed the captain cried for we are sorely pressed
The engineer from the bank replied "The horse is doing his best".

7. Then we all fell into the water and we all let out a roar
There was an old farmer standing there
And he threw us the end of his galluses and he pulled us all ashore
It’s no more I’ll be a sailiar and sail the raging main
And the next time I go to Portadown I’ll go by the bloody train.

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