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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

Stand by for some action! We have been assigned to an aged English battleship called The 'Old Superb'. When the fleet sails into battle in pursuit of an enemy force we cannot keep up with the rest of the fleet and quickly fall behind. But we're determined . . .

This song graphically describes the thrill of the chase in a old, worn out vessel, with a very resolute captain and a keen and energetic crew. It is written in the time of Nelson's Navy, but the sentiments would easily translate to Fleets of Sir Francis Drake in his battles with the forces of Spain.

This is an image carried  forward through the years of maritime history - non more so than the Atlantic Convoys of the Second World War.

The magnificent music created by Charles Villiers Stanford for Henry Newbolt's poem - the fifth in the Songs of the Sea suite, is set in B flat Major and Common Time (4/4). It is marked 'Allegro vivace', which instructs us to give a bit of welly.

Here we go then, Allegro vivace. Ship ahoy!!

The Old Superb
(4 bars intro)

(Solo) The wind was rising easterly,
The morning sky was blue,
The straits before us open'd wide and free;
We look'd towards the Admiral,
Where high the Peter flew,
And all our hearts were dancing like the sea.

The French are gone to Martinique
With four and twenty sail,
The "Old Superb" is old and foul and slow;
But the French are gone to Martinique,
And Nelson's on the trail,
And where he goes the "Old Superb" must go.

(Chorus) So Westward ho! for Trinidad,
And Eastward ho! for Spain,
And "Ship ahoy" a hundred times a day;
Round the world, if need be,
And round the world again
With a lame duck lagging,
Lagging all the way.
(4 bars interlude)S

(Solo) The "Old Superb" was barnacled
 and green as grass below,
Her sticks were only fit for stirring grog;
The pride of all her midshipmen was silent long ago.
And long ago they ceased to heave the log.

Four year out from home she was, 
And ne're a week in port,
And nothing save the guns aboard her bright;
But Captain Keats he knew the game,
 And swore to share the sport,
For he never yet came in too late to fight.

(Chorus) So Westward ho! for Trinidad,
And Eastward ho! for Spain,
And "Ship ahoy" a hundred times a day;
Round the world, if need be,
And round the world again
With a lame duck lagging,
Lagging all the way.
(4 bars interlude)

(Solo) "Now up, my lads", the Captain cried, 
"for sure the case were hard.
If longest out were first to fall behind;
Aloft, aloft with studding sails,
And lash them on the yard,
For night and day the trades are driving blind."

So all day long and all day long 
Behind the fleet we crept,
And how we fretted non but Nelson guessed;
But ev'ry night the "Old Superb"
She sailed when others slept,
Till we ran the French to earth with all the rest.

(Chorus) O 'twas Westward ho! for Trinidad,
And Eastward ho! for Spain,
And "Ship ahoy" a hundred times a day;
Round the world, if need be,
And round the world again,
Round the world again
Round the world again . . .
With a lame duck, a lame duck
A-lagging, lagging,
Lagging all the way . . . .
(6 bars 'Presto' postlude)

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