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As I roved out one fine summer's evening
To view those flow'rs and to take the air,
'Twas there I spied a tender mother
Talking to her daughter dear.
Singing, "Daughter, O daughter, I'II have you to marry,
No longer to live a sweet single life."
"O mother, O mother, I 'd rather to tarry
To be some brave young sailor's wife."
"A sailor shy sits all for to wander;
To some foreign counteree he go.
They will cause you to sigh and to murmur,
They will prove your overthrow."
"Or if you could get me to wed with a farmer,
To be your joy and heart's delight;
But give me the boy with the tarry, tarry trousers,
To shine in my eyes like the diamond bright."
She hung her head on the top of her shoulders,
Tears from her eyes like the fountain flowed;
"I'll stay at home and be true-hearted
Whilst my love to the seas doth go."
"Hark, O, hark, how the great guns are rattling
Big and small they all make noise;
My true love's in the field of battle,
Now fight on, my gallant boys."
Published with the title As I Roved Out in Ballads And Sea Songs Of Newfoundland by Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf and Grace Yarrow Mansfield (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1933; Folklore Associates, Hatboro, PA, 1968). A variant was collected in 1959 from Mrs. Clara Sevens of Bellburns, NL, by Ken Peacock and published as Anchors Aweigh, Love in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, pp.495-496, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved. A variant was also collected by Helen Creighton (1899-1989) and Doreen H. Senior and published as Tarry Trousers in Traditional Songs From Nova Scotia, pp.212-214, (Ryerson, Toronto, 1950). Earliest known variant found in the 1848 journal of the whaling vessel Nauticon out of Nantucket, MA, by the captain's wife, Susan Veeder, archived at the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library.
