The Maid on the Shore- Case (MO) c. 1916 Belden
[From Henry Marvin Belden's Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society 1940, pp. 107-109. Eva Warner Case was an active informant for the Missouri Folk-Lore Society circa 1916. According to a chart at Ancestry.com, she was born about 1877. She remembered songs from her child hood in the 1880s and probably submitted the text to Belden around 1916.
R. Matteson 2014]
"The Maid on the Shore." From Miss Case, known by her in her childhood in Harrison County.
There was a fair damsel all crossed in love
And deeply sunk down in despair O;
And naught could she find to ease her sweet mind
But to ramble alone on the shore O shore,
But to ramble alone on the shore.
(Repeat thus the last line of each stanza)
There was a sea captain who sailed that way;
The wind blow steady and fair O
"I shall die! I shall die!" the captain did cry,
If I don't win that maid on the shore.
'It's I have jewels, I have rings,
It's I have costly ware O.
Oh! it's what will I give to my jolly seamen
If they'll bring me that maid on the shore!'
By many persuasions they got her on board;
The captain he set her a chair O.
He invited her down to the cabin below,
Saying, 'Fare you well, sorrow and care!'
'I'll sing you a song if you don't think it wrong.'
The captain upon her did stare O.
She sung it so sweet, so loud and complete,
She sung captain and seamen to sleep.
She robbed them of jewels, she robbed them of rings,
She robbed them of costly ware O;
The captain's broadsword she took for an oar
And she paddled her boat to the shore.
Our men they were mad, our men they were sad,
And deeply sunk down, down in despair O
To see her go 'way, in her beauty so gay,
To ramble alone on the shore.
Nor were our men mad, nor were our men sad,
Nor deeply sunk down in despair O
I eluded my men as well as myself
And I gained that sweet maid on the shore.
In the Maine and Nova Scotia texts the last two stanza B are (1) question by the captain and (2) answer by the maid -making the situation more intelligible:
'O were my men sleeping, or were my men mad,
Or were my men sunk in despair, O,
That that lady so gay should thus run away,
'When the captain he welcomed her there, O ?'