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Ye muses, so kind that are guided by wind,
On the ocean as well as on shore;
Assist a poor bard how to candle his card,
Without ceasing where billows do roar;
Not of Cupids he sings, nor of country nor kings,
Or of any such trifles he thinks;
But of seafaring, sailmaking, gamboling,
Capering, grog-drinking heroes like Hinks.
When Jack comes ashore he has money galore,
And he's seldom cut short of a job;
He can dress as well now, as many can tell,
With a good silver watch in his fob;
Poor Jack in his life was ne'er plagued with a wife,
Though sometimes with lasses he links;
He's a seafaring, sailmaking, gamboling,
Capering grog-drinking hero, John Hinks.
When inclined for to spend he walks in with a friend,
And with pleasure he sits himself down;
He tips off his glass as he winks at the lass,
And he smiles if she happens to frown;
Like a rattling true blue when the reckoning comes due,
On the table the money he clinks;
This seafaring, sailmaking, gamboling,
Capering grog-drinking hero, Jack Hinks.
Bound home the other fall we fell in with a squall,
Near the northern head of Cape Freels;
We were cast away without further delay,
At the thought how my spirit it chills;
We were cast upon rocks like a hard-hunted fox,
Then of death and destruction he thinks;
That seafaring, sailmaking, gamboling,
Capering grog-drinking hero, Jack Hinks.
Oh, Jack without fail was out in that same gale,
Having drove across Bonavist' Bay;
Old Neptune did rail as he handled all sail,
And then had their two spars cut away;
But Providence kind who so eases the wind,
And on seamen so constantly thinks;
Saved that seafaring, sailmaking, gamboling,
Capering grog-drinking hero, Jack Hinks.
Oh, death it will come like the sound of a drum,
For to summon poor Jack to his grave;
What more could he do, for you all know 'tis true,
'Tis the fate of both hero and slave;
His soul sails afloat so doleful and soft,
While the bell for the funeral clinks;
Oh, peace to that seafaring, sailmaking, gamboling,
Capering, grog-drinking hero, John Hinks.
First collected and edited by Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf and recorded in the field by Grace Yarrow Mansfield. Published as #131 in Ballads And Sea Songs Of Newfoundland by Harvard University Press (1933). A variant was also published in Gerald S. Doyle's Old-Time Songs And Poetry Of Newfoundland: Songs Of The People From The Days Of Our Forefathers (Second edition, p.9, 1940; Third edition, p.9, 1955).
