O, it was a fine and a pleasant day Out of Yarmouth harbor I was faring As a cabin boy on a sailing lugger For to hunt the bonny shoals of herring
Well, I earned my keep and I paid my way And I earned the gear that I was wearing Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes That we’d hunted in the shoals of herring
Night and day, the seas were daring Come, wind, O call our winter gale Sweating or cold, growing up growing old or dying As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring