The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #126338 Message #2806214
Posted By: GUEST,999
07-Jan-10 - 09:12 PM
Thread Name: Origins: But one man of her crew alive...
Subject: RE: Origins: But one man of her crew alive...
The Banks of Newfoundland
Oh, ye may bless your happy lots, all ye who dwell on shore
For it's little ye know of the hardships that we poor seamen bore
It's little ye know of the hardships that we were forced to stand
For fourteen days and fifteen nights on the Banks of Newfoundland.
Our ship she sailed through frost and snow from the day we left Quebec
And if we had not walked about we'd have frozen to the deck
But we being true-born sailormen as ever a ship had manned
Our Captain doubled our grog each day on the Banks of Newfoundland.
There never was a ship, my boys, that sailed the western sea
But the billowy waves came rollin' in and bent them into staves
Our ship being built of unseasoned wood and could but little stand
The hurricane it met us there on the Banks of Newfoundland.
We fasted for three days and nights, our provisions giving out
On the morning of the fourth day we cast our lots about
The lot it fell on the Captain's son; thinking relief at hand
We spared him for another night on the Banks of Newfoundland.
On the morning of the fifth day no vessel did appear
We gave to him another hour to offer up a prayer
But Providence to us proved kind, kept blood from every hand
For an English vessel hove in sight on the Banks of Newfoundland.
We hoisted aloft our signal; they bore down on us straightway
When they saw our pitiful condition they began to weep and pray
Five hundred souls we had on board the day we left land
There's now alive but seventy-five on the Banks of Newfoundland.
They took us off of the wreck, my boys; we were more like ghosts than men
They fed us and they clothed us and brought us back again
They fed us and they clothed us and brought us safe to land
While the billowy waves roll o'er their graves on the Banks of Newfoundland
from
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:BufiXvnFn6QJ:www.members.shaw.ca/tunebook/banksof3.htm+There%27s+now+alive+but+seventy-five
You may also download a midi file at that site.
(No mention of RLS, however.)