When she steams into the harbor
People don't flock around like bees:
For she ain't no grim destroyer,
No dark terror of the seas.
And there ain't a load of romance
To the guy that doesn't know,
In a ship that just saves vessels
When the icy norther's blow.
But the men that sail the ocean
In a wormy, rotten craft,
When the sea ahead is mountains
With a hell-blown gale abaft;
When the main mast cracks and topples,
And she's lurching in the trough,
Them's the guys that greet the "Cutter"
With the smiles that won't come off.
When the old storm signals flyin'
Every vessel seeks a lee,
'Cept the "Cutter," which ups anchor
And goes ploughing out to sea.
When the hurricane's a blowin'
From the banks of old Cape Cod,
Oh the "Cutter" with her searchlight,
Seems the messenger of God.