She's always used and she's always knowed,
For there isn't a blooming wind can blow
In all the latitudes, high or low,
Nor there isn't a kind of sea that rolls,
From both the Tropics to both the Poles,
But she's knowed 'em all since she sailed sou' Spain,
She's weathered the lot, and she'll do it again,
The same as she's done before.

And sail or steam or coasting craft, the big ships with the small,
The barges which were steamers once, the hulks that once were tall,
They wanted tonnage cruel bad, and so they fetched 'em all.

And some went out as fighting-craft and shipped a fighting crew,
But most they tramped the same old road they always used to do,
With a crowd of merchant-sailormen, as might be me or you ...

With a lick o' paint and a bucket o' tar,
And she's fit for the seas once more,
To carry the Duster near and far,
The same as she used before;
The same old Rag on the same old round,
Bar Light vessel and Puget Sound,
Brass and Bonny and Grand Bassam,
Both the Rios and Rotterdam--
Dutch and Dagoes, niggers and Chinks,
Palms and fire-flies, spices and stinks--
Portland (Oregon), Portland (Maine),
She's been there once and she'll go there again,
The same as she's been before.