The Song Of The Great Sea Serpent
By G. K. Chesterton
Has anybody seen the Great Sea Serpent?
Serpent of the Sea.
Is anybody friends with the Great Sea Serpent?
Nobody seems to be.
Nobody, for nobody can understand
Why the Great Sea Serpent isn’t seen on land,
Hanging about Westminster or walking down the Strand,
Or dropping in to tea.
(Chorus): Has anybody seen, etc.
The people who have seen the Great Sea Serpent
Did extremely wrong:
For nobody must see the Great Sea Serpent
Nobody who hears this song.
Nobody, for nobody must trust his eyes
If he sees it swell to enormous size
Trailing through the hemisphere and towering to the skies
A thousand fathoms long.
The people who have seen the Great Sea Serpent
Were men of low degree,
For nobody has seen the Great Sea Serpent
But men that sail the sea;
And only because all of them are frauds and fakes,
Nelson and the Collingwoods and Drakes and Blakes,
Always putting rum away and always seeing snakes.
Britannia rules the sea.
(Chorus): Has anybody seen, etc.
