Traditional British sea shanty. I first encountered the work in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, in which the Walker children sing the song as they set off to go camping on an island in a lake.


Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain;
For we're under orders for to sail to old England,
And we may never see you fair ladies again.

We'll rant and we'll roar, over all the wide ocean,
We'll rant and we'll roar, over all the salt seas,
Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England -
From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.


The first land we made was the point called the Dodman,
Then Rame Head off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight,
We sailed on past Beachy, by Fairlee and Dungeness,
And made straight away for the South Foreland Light.

Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain;
For we're under orders for to sail to old England,
But we hope in a short time to see you again.