Hey, MMario, do you happen to remember where you found this one? Here's a slightly different version from Sigmund Spaeth's Read 'Em and Weep: The Songs You Forgot to Remember (1927). I wonder if we can find a text that we can verify as the version Holmes wrote.

THE YOUNG OYSTERMAN

There was a tall young oysterman lived by the riverside,
His shop it was upon the bank, his boat was on the tide,
The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim,
Liv'd over on the other bank, right opposite to him.

It was the pensive oysterman, that saw a lovely maid,
Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the shade;
He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if to say,
"I'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the folks away."

Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he,
"I guess I'll leave the skiff at home, for fear the folks should see,
I read it in the story book, that, for to kiss his dear,
Leander swam the Hellespont, and I will swim this here."

And he has leaped into the waves and crossed the shining stream,
And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight gleam;
Oh, there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as rain;
But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps again!

Out spake the ancient fisherman— " Oh what was that, my daughter?"
"Twas nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the water."
"And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off so fast?"
"It's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that's been a-swimming past."

Out spoke the ancient fisherman, "Now bring me my harpoon!
I'll get into my fishing boat, and fix the fellow soon."
Down fell that pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb,
Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like sea-weed on a clam.

Alas for those two loving ones! She waked not from her swound.
And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was drowned;
But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe,
And now they keep an oyster shop, for mermaids down below.

Spaeth's notes:

The conversational ballad type is preserved in a gently humorous poem, "The Young Oysterman," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, originally having a tune of its own with a refrain:
With a Rook-chee-took, che-took-che-took-che,
Whack! Fol-lo! diddle-lol la day.
But it can be sung most effectively to the old Gambolier melody ("I'm a Rambling Wreck from Georgia Tech").

Or, if you like, you could sing it to the Boy Scout tune for Dunderbeck. My work on Dunderbeck is how I got here to the poor Oysterman.
-Joe Offer-