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'Twas a gay Spanish maid, at the age of sixteen,
Through the valley she roamed far and wide;
Beneath a beech tree she sat down for a rest,
With her gay, gallant youth by her side.
"My ship sails tomorrow, my darling," he cried,
"And together we ramble no more;
So to-night when your parents retire to rest
Will you meet me tonight, love, on shore!"
That night when her parents retired to rest,
Lovely Annie stepped out the hall door;
With her hat in her hand she ran down to the sand,
And she sat on a rock by the shore.
The moon had just risen from over the deep,
Where the sea and the sky seemed to meet;
Naught came from the deep but a murm'ring wave,
And it broke on the sand at her feet.
With her hat in her hand straight home she did go,
And her father he met her half way;
He took her in his arms, and he gave her a kiss,
Saying, "He's left you and gone far away."
That night it arose to a terrible storm,
And the good ship went down in the storm;
He swam to a plank that escaped from the wreck,
While the rest met a watery grave.
He returned to his love he had left on the shore.
How she thought of her boy in the storm!
She died like a rose that is called by the frost,
And she left him in sorrow to mourn.
Sung by Ernest Poole (b.1881) of Cape Ray, NL, and published in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA). A variant was collected by MacEdward Leach (1897-1967) and published as #17, Gay Spanish Maid, in Folk Ballads And Songs Of The Lower Labrador Coast (National Museum of Canada, Ottawa,1965). A variant was also collected from Mrs. Grantmyre in Halifax by Helen Creighton (1899-1989) and published in Songs And Ballads From Nova Scotia (Dent, 1932; Dover, 1966).
