Sweet William- Job Read (Hamp) 1906 Gardiner
[From George Gardiner Manuscript Collection (GG/1/7/361). Has "jovial seamen," 2nd stanza.
R. Matteson 2017]
Sweet William - sung by Job Read of Southampton Workhouse, Hampshire on June 14, 1906.
A sailor's life is a merry life
Which robs young girls of their heart's delight,
But where he's gone no tongue can tell
I fear he's gone with some other girl.
I had not sailed far on the deep
Before a lofty queen's ship we met.
"Come jovial seamen come tell me true,
Is my sweet William amongst your crew?
O no, fair lady, he is not here,
For he is drowned, I greatly fear.
For the other night when the wind blowed high
That's when we lost our sailor boy.
Then she sat down and she wrote a song,
She wrote it wide and she wrote it long
And every line she dropped a tear
Crying "That's the end, I've lost my dear."