Up and Away

Now when I was a young man
 We lived near the sea strand
 And me folks kept a tavern called the Admiral's Head
 And old salts by the fireside
 Would tell of the seas wide
 The far foreign shores and the lives that they led
 And it's up and away in the morning
 O' the tears me poor mother has cried
 But the sea it had called me
 And you may say I'm balmy
 But I went to her just like a bride
 And it's up and away in the morning
 Well I walked into Bristol
 With cutlass and pistol
 A new bo'sun's whistle and a swaggerin' stride
 And without too much censure
 I soon was indentured
 And embarked for adventure on a bright morning's tide
 And it's up and away in the morning
 With the wind to our back's we will sail
 And the ship may well take ya
 From here to Jamaica
 Where they serve up the rum by the pail
 And it's up and away in the morning
 After two months hard toil
 We docked in Port Royal
 Our virtues to spoil or at least to curtail
 But the trouble with the boisterous
 Sailors who roister's
 Their choice is to run or to end up in jail
 And it's up and away in the morning
 And the salt spray tastes finer than wine
 Dawn on the horizon
 And the size of the prize
 From the taking of a ship of the line
 And it's up and away in the morning
 Now some say the sea is a sickness but we
 Feel the thickness of wits lest we're shortening sail
 And we see the sea glint
 The focsle and bowsprit
 And our course is well plotted and runs fore the gale
 And it's up and away in the morning
 And though we may never come home
 We'll think of it often
 'Till the day that our lead-weighted coffins
 Get tossed in the foam
 And it's up and away in the morning
 And it's up and away in the morning
 With the wind to our back's we will sail
 And the ship may well take ya
 From here to Jamaica
 Where the storms and the waves
 They will toss ya and shake ya
 And you'll do desperate deeds
 For which God might forsake ya
 But there's nowhere that we'd rather be
 And it's up and away in the morning