With our nets and gear we're faring On the wild and wasteful ocean It's out there on the deep We harvest and reap our bread As we hunt the bonny shoals of herring
Oh, it was a fine and a pleasant day Out of Yarmouth harbour I was faring As a cabin boy, on a sailing lugger We were following the shoals of herring
Now you're up on deck, you're a fisherman You can swear and show a manly bearing Take a turn on watch with the other fellers As you're hunting for the shoals of herring
Now we fished the Sward and the Broken Bank I was cook and I'd a quarter sharing And I used to sleep standing on me feet As we hunted for the shoals of herring
We left the home grounds in the month of June And for canny Shields we soon were bearing With a hundred cran of the silver darlings That we'd taken from the shoals of herring
In the stormy seas and the living gales Just to earn your daily bread you're faring From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands And you're hunting for the shoals of herring
Well, I earned me keep and I paid me way And I earned the gear that I was wearing Sailed a million miles, caught ten million fishes We were hunting after shoals of herring
You're net-ropeman now, boy you're on the move And you're learning all about sea-faring That's your education, scraps of navigation As you hunt the bonny shoals of herring
Night and day, the seas we're daring Come wind or calm or winter gale Sweating or cold, growing up, growing old Or dying As you hunt the bonny shoals of herring