As I was a-walking down by the sea-shore,
Where the winds whistled high, and the waters did roar,
Where the winds whistled high, and the waves raged around.
I heard a fair maid make a pitiful sound,
Crying, O! my love is drowned!
My love must I deplore!
And I never, O! never
Shall see my love more!
I never a nobler, a truer did see
A lion in courage, but gentler to me,
An eye like an eagle, a heart like a dove,
And the song that he sang me was ever of love.
Now I cry, O! my love is drowned!
My love must I deplore!
And I never, O! never
Shall see my love more!
He is sunk in the waters, there he lies asleep.
I will plunge there as well as I kiss his cold feet.
I will kiss the white lips, once coral like red,
And die at his side, for my true love is dead.
Crying, O! my love is drowned!
My love must I deplore!
And I never, O! never
Shall see my love more.
abc | midi | pdf
Source: Songs Of The West, S Baring-Gould
Notes:
Baring Gould notes:
Taken down from James Parsons. This is a very early song. It first appears as "Captain Digby's Farewell," in the "Roxburgh Ballads," iv. p. 393, printed in 1671.
In Playford's Choice Ayres," 1676, i. p. 10, it was set to music by Mr Robert Smith. Then it came to be applied to the death of the Earl of Sandwich, after the action in Sole Bay, 1673.
A black letter ballad, date circ 1676, is headed, "To the tune of the Earl Of Sandwich's Farewell." The original song consisted of three stanzas only; it became gradually enlarged and somewhat altered, and finally Sam Cowell composed burlesque on it, which has served more or less to corrupt the current versions of the old song, printed by Catnach, Harkness, and others.
The black letter ballad of 1673 begins-
"One morning I walked by myself on the shoar
When the Tempest did cry and the Waves they did roar.
Yet the music of the Winds and the Waters was drownd
By the pitiful cry , and the sorrowful sound,
Oh! Ah! Ah! Ah! my Love' dead.
There is not a bell
But a Triton's shell,
To ring, to ring, to ring my Love's knell."
"Colonel Digby's Lament," 1671, begins-
"I'll go to my Love, where he lies in the Deep,
And in my Embrace, my dearest shall sleep.
When we wake, the kind Dolphins together shall throng,
And in chariots of shells shall draw us along.
Ah Ah! My Love is dead.
There was not bell, but a Triton's shell,
To ring, to ring out his knell."
A second version of the melody, but slightly varied from that we give, was sent to us by Mr H. Whitefeld of Plymouth, as sung by his father. Our air is entirely different from that given by Playford, and is probably the older melody, which was not displaced by the compositions of Mr. R. Smith. The song is sung to the same melody, but slightly varied, in Ireland.
Roud: 466 (Search Roud index at VWML) Take Six
Laws:
Child: