With decking planks and rigging ropes,
I sail away tonight.
To bow, the dark and all my hopes,
To stern the harbour light,

To starboard there’s a marker buoy,
To port we run aground.
Above the sky is speckled bright,
Beneath the depths there’s Plymouth Sound.

Into the night, the ship we sail
Across the barren sea,
In hopes to catch the Jonah whale,
The Captain, crew and me.

The prize for catching such a beast
Is worth the life I lead.
I’ll pull the ropes; I’ll throw the lance
Until my hands they bleed.

The dawns they break, they come and go,
Like a seagull’s flashing tail,
Yet still we sail, on and on,
Too catch that elusive whale.

Then one morn’, as the Sun it wakes
And horizons glow and burn,
We sight a hump within the waves,
Half a mile astern.

The Captain shouts to, “turn the ship!”
The case has now begun.
The Bow-son and the Second Mate
Now man the harpoon gun.

Through he waves, the bow it breaks,
The whale starts to descend,
The captain orders, “ full ahead, ”
We’re to hunt her to the end.”

For half an hour the whale is gone
And with it all our fears,
Than the giant rears up its hump,
Its breathing hole appears.

With a smoke filled flash! The gun is fired,
The harpoon beds in deep,
The whale in startled pain it reels,
Its dignity, trying to keep.

The whale it fights, to depth to swim,
With the harpoon holding fast
Its only hope is now to run,
And not too come in last.

But the fight it is half over
As the whale it now concedes.
The crested waves have all turned red.
The monster’s blood, it bleeds.

Its dying breath, the whale exhales,
Not air, but blood does spill.
Then the harpoon gun is fired again
As we move in for the kill.

The whale now dead, upon the waves,
The last of all its breed.
Now we’ll see no more a whale to swim,
Thanks to man and his lustful greed.