Come All Ye

Oh! a sailor courted a farmer’s daughter;
Who lived contagious to the Isle of Man.
With warbling melodies he did besought her
To marry him before she’s marry any other sort of a kind of man.

But the farmer’s daughter had great possessions,
A silver teapot and two pounds in gold;
And says she, “Would ye marry me, me boult salt water sea-sailor,
If I threw them into the ocean cold?”

“Oh,” says he, “I’d marry you, me hearts enchantment,
If you had nothing but your father’s curse!”
So she made up a bundle of all her grand possessions
And threw them into the water… that ends that verse.

But the sailor he could swim like a duckling,
So into the water he dived down deep below,
Got hold of the bundle and swam away chuckling.
To think of the times he’d be having when he landed down in Ballinasloe.

But the farmer’s daughter was kilt with the laughing,
To think of the bundle she’d made up out of stone..
Oh! a sailors courted a farmer’s daughter,
But now he’s wishing that he’d left the girl alone.

Prose, Poems & Parodies of Percy French, 1980, Helicon Limited, Dublin.