But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve,

And he wasn't the laced cocked-hat.

"Nelson was just—a Ghost!

You may laugh! But the Devonshire men

They knew that he'd come when England called,

And they know that he'll come again.

"I'll tell you the way it was

(For none of the landsmen know),

And to tell it you right, you must go a-starn

Two hundred years or so.

* * * *

"The waves were lapping and slapping

The same as they are to-day;

And Drake lay dying aboard his ship

In Nombre Dios Bay.

"The scent of the foreign flowers

Came floating all around;

'But I'd give my soul for the smell o' the pitch,'

Says he, 'in Plymouth Sound.'

"'What shall I do,' he says,

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