The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #74823   Message #1308844
Posted By: Joe Offer
27-Oct-04 - 02:01 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Three Score and Ten
Subject: ADD Version: Three Score and Ten
Here's the version from Roy Palmer's Oxford Book of Sea Songs (1986). Note that this version has only three stanzas, and the one in the DT and Bok/Muir/Trickett has four. Palmer mentions an 8-stanza version. Can we find that one?

THREE SCORE AND TEN
Methinks I see some little craft spreading their sails a-lee
As down the Humber they do glide all bound for the northern sea.
Methinks I see on each small craft a crew with hearts so brave
Going out to earn their daily bread upon the restless wave.

Methinks I see them yet again as they leave the land behind,
Casting their nets into the sea the fishing ground to find.
Methinks I see them yet again and all on board's all right,
With the sails flow free and the decks cleared up and the side-lights burning bright.

October's night was such a sight was never seen before:
There was masts, there was yards; broken spars came floating to our shore.
There was many a heart of sorrow, there was many hearts so brave;
There was many a hearty fisherlad did find a watery grave.