Sailor Boy- Ann Hiles (Linc) 1905 Grainger
[From: Percy Grainger Manuscript Collection (PG/1/93). A variant of D.
R. Matteson 2017]
Sailor Boy- sung by Miss Ann Hiles of Kirton-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire on September 2, 1905. Collected by Percy Grainger.
Oh father make me a little boat
That I may on the ocean float,
And every Queen ship that I pass by
There I may inquire about my sailor boy.
She had not sailed long on the deep
Before a queen's ship she chanced to meet.
"All you sailors, pray tell me true,
Whether my sweet William sails among your crew?"
"O no, fair lady, he is not here,
But he is drowned, I greatly fear.
On yon green island as we passed by
There we lost sight of your sailor boy."
Then she sat her down and she wrote a song,
She wrote it wide and she wrote it long
At every verse she dropp-ed a tear
Saying at the bottom, "I have lost my dear."