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Come all ye lads and lassies that wear a bunch of green,
I hope you'll pay attention and listen unto me;
I am a poor unhappy girl disturbed all in my mind,
And for my brisk young sailor lad no comfort can I find.
O, the lad that I love dearly, he's proper tall and slim,
He is well-formed in features, well-shaped in every limb;
He is both tall and thin withal, he's no deluding tongue,
He's a lover of good behavior, to me, a girl so young.
I have kept my true love's company for better than three year,
He promised that he'd marry me, I own I loved him dear;
But now he's gone and leavéd me, I can not tell how far,
He has gone to serve his misery on board a man-o'-war.
I pray each night that he'll be safe while he is on the main,
And that he'll shun all danger until he returns again,
He is a tall and handsome youth, his loss I do deplore,
And I'll weep daily for my love till he returns once more.
He givéd me his black ribbon to mourn for him so fair,
But like a loyal lover the bunch of blue I wear;
If in the wars he will be slain, hIs face I never shall see,
But in heaven I hope his soul will shine through all eternity.
Sung in part in 1929 by Tom White of Sandy Cove, NL, and published as The Man-Of-War Piece, #45 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).
