| Chorus: He was the Captain of The Nightingale twenty-one days from Clyde in coal, He could smell the flowers of Bermuda in the gale when he died on the North Rock Shoals. |
| Just five short hours from Bermuda in a fine October gale There came a cry, "Oh there be breakers dead ahead," from the collier Nightingale. No sooner had the captain brought her round came a rending crash below Hard on her beam ends, groaning like the nightingale and oversides her mainmast blows. |
| Chorus |
| Just five short hours from Bermuda in a fine October gale There came a cry, "Oh there be breakers dead ahead," from the collier Nightingale. No sooner had the captain brought her round came a rending crash below Hard on her beam ends, groaning like the nightingale and oversides her mainmast blows. |
| Chorus |
| "Oh Captain are we all for drowning?" came the cry from all the crew "The boats be smashed, how are we all then to be saved? They are stove in through and through." "Oh are ye brave and hearty colliermen, or are you blind and cannot see? The captain's gig still lies before ye whole and sound. It shall carry all of we." |
| But when the crew was all assembled and the gig prepared for sea 'Twas seen there were but eighteen places to be manned. Nineteen mortal souls were we. But cries the Captain, "Now do not delay, nor do ye spare a thought for me My duty is to save ye all now if I can. See ye return quick as can be." |
| Chorus |
| Oh there be flowers in Bermuda, beauty lies on every hand And there be laughter, ease and drink for every man but there is no joy for me For when we reached the wretched Nightingale what an awful sight was plain The Captain, drowned, was tangled in the mizzen chains smiling bravely beneath the sea. |
| Chorus x3 |