With our nets and gear we’re faring On the wild and wasteful ocean It’s there that we hunt and we earn our bread As we hunted for the 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 For to go and hunt the shoals of herring Oh the work was hard, and the hours were long And the treatment, sure it took some bearing There was little kindness, and the kicks were many As we hunted for the shoals of herring Oh, we’ve fished the Swarth and the Broken Bank I was cook and I’d a quarter sharing And I used to sleep standing on me feet And I’d dream about the shoals of herring Oh we left the home grounds in the month of June And for Canny Shields we soon was faring With a hundred cran of the silver darlings That we’d taken from the shoals of herring Now you’re up on deck, you’re a fisherman You can swear, and show a manly bearing Take your turn on watch with the other fellows While you’re searching for the shoals of herring In the stormy seas and the living gales Just to earn your daily bread you’re daring From the Dover Straits to the Faroe Islands While you’re following the shoals of herring Oh, 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 We were sailing after shoals of herring