Explore "The Ballad of the 'Calliope'" by Andrew Barton Paterson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
By the far Samoan shore, / Where the league-long rollers pour / All the wash of the Pacific on the coral-guarded bay, / Riding lightly at their ease, / In the calm of tropic seas, / The three great nations' warships at their anchors proudly lay.
Riding lightly, head to wind, / With the coral reefs behind, / Three Germans and three Yankee ships were mirrored in the blue; / And on one ship unfurled / Was the flag that rules the world -- / For on the old 'Calliope' the flag of England flew.