Sailor Boy- K. L. (London) 1862 Monthly Packet
[From: The Monthly Packet of evening readings for younger members of the English Church, January--June 1862, London, by John and Charles Mozley, Paternoster Row. From the chapter, "Life among the Factories" by K. L. This is similar to Sailor Boy and his Faithful Mary. An excerpt with text follows.
R. Matteson 2017]
Song-singing was a favourite amusement with them all; never more vigorously pursued than over the wash-tub, at the end of a day of hard work. Some of them could manage a second very well; and we had one or two really fine voices. Their choice of songs, too, was good; now and then we objected to one, and it was dropped directly. We enjoyed most the old ballads, with their quaint tunes, which they had learnt they knew not where. 'Barbara Allen' was one of these, whose cruelties seem to have been chaunted both in England and Scotland, where a version of the same song exists, from time immemorial. Another, of far more recent date probably, for its lines halted terribly, and its grammar was weak as its sentiment, appeared to have been composed by a young woman of poetic temperament, and sung by her after her decease. No one seemed aware of the comic element in it; they all sat seriously attentive, repeating the last two lines as a chorus, while the chief singer, with her head on one side, her eyes cast down, and rocking gently to and fro, droned it slowly and sadly forth. Here are the words, taken down as they were sung:—
'There's five-and-twenty all in a row,
And William he is the fairest show;
He is both handsome, genteel, and tall:
I'll have my William, else none at all.
"O Father! Father! build me a boat,
That on the ocean I may float;
And every king-ship that I pass by,
I will inquire for my sailor-boy."
I had not sailed far upon the deep,
Before a king-ship I chanced to meet:
"O jolly sailor, come tell me true,
If my sweet William's along with you?"
"Oh no, fair lady, he is not here,
For he is drowned, I greatly fear.
The other night, when the wind blew high,
It was then you lost your young sailor-boy."
She sat her down, and she wrote a song;
She wrote it wide, and she wrote it long;
At every line she shed a tear,
And at every verse she cried, "William dear!''
She wrung her hands, and she tore her hair,
Just like some lady in deep despair;
She plunged her body into the deep—
In the sailor's arms she lies fast asleep.'
Surely the last verse but one in the history of this nautical Evangeline, while the most absurd from its utter impossibility, is almost pathetic in its conceit. But it is singular to remark how many of these old ballads end in suicide as a matter of course, and no idea of wrong seems to be attached to it. It is this separation of our religious belief from our actual life, shown again in the 'lies fast asleep,' which is perhaps one of the greatest religious anomalies of our day. Eminently practical as a nation in our daily existence, we have grown into a habit of laying aside our religion with our Sunday clothes, to be taken out and aired once a week.