Here's the version from Peacock (SotNO). If you need the tune I can post that later; let me know.

Mick

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THE SHIP THAT NEVER CAME

As I roved out one evening I sat down to take a rest,
I saw a boy scarce four years old close to his mother's breast,
Saying, "Once I had a father dear who did me kind embrace,
If he was here he would wipe the tears roll down my mother's face.

"Oh mother, oh mother come tell to me, oh mother come tell me why,
Why don't my father's ship come home, why do you sob and cry?        
All other ships are coming home leaving the white waves foam,
But my father's ship is not come yet, what makes her tarry long?"

"Your father's ship, my darling child, his face you never shall see,
For the hurricane of the ocean sweeps his body in the sea;
The fish that's in the water swims over young father's breast,
And his body lies in motion, and I hope his soul's at rest."

"Right well I do remember when he took me on his knee,
Saying: 'Here's a bird and fruit I've brought from deep o'er India's sea,'
Right well I do remember when he wove his hat in hand,
These words he spoke: 'God bless you both,' as he sailed from the land."

"The ocean is wide and fathoms deep, as the earth is from the sky,
There's a heaven above, my darling child, there's a home for you and I;
You're the only one that's leaved to me and I press you to my side."
Where they both lay down together and the son and mother died.

This late, sentimental ballad was found previously in Newfoundland by Greenleaf and Mansfield and included in their Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland as The Gentle Boy . I have not seen it in any other collections.


Source: Peacock, Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, from Mrs. Charlotte Decker, Parson's Pond, August, 1958