From: HERE (The Rosemary) (with score).

THE ROSEMARY
(Pete Dodds)

'Twas way up in Brummagem so I do hear say,
A boat by the name of the Rosemary lay.
She was clothed up and painted in traditional style,
But she hadn't carried for a very long while.

CHORUS
Fol-de-rol, fol-de-ri-do, sing fol-de-rol-day,
It's the song they're all singing down Brummagem way.

Along came a boatman, the old boat to see,
Says he 'Here's a craft that is useful to me.
I'll load her with coal and for London I'll steer',
Said the boatman to the owner, 'If I take her from here'.

The owner said 'Yes' and the boatman 'Okay'
And into the cabin he went straightaway.
He lit up the stove, cleaned cobwebs and mould,
And polished the beam 'til it shone like fine gold.

He sang as he laboured far into the night,
Got up in the morning before it was light.
He put the rusty blowlamp on the cylinder head,
'Tis a fine day for boating', the old boatman said.

He primed up the engine, a prayer in his heart,
And kicked on the flywheel to see if she'd start;
With a bang like the sound of a ten-pounder gun
The aged old Bolinder started to run.

He cast off the fore-end and at the counter he stood,
As the Rosemary shook herself free of the mud.
With tears in his eyes says the boatman 'We may
Get right down to Coventry 'fore the end of the day.'

On dark stormy nights round the fall of the year,
If the beat of a Bolinder distant you hear,
It not Clayton's Sour, Youmea or the Tay;
It's the ghost of the boatman and the old Rosemary.

Notes

Brummagem: a slang term for Birmingham. 'Brum' and 'Birningame' are also used at times.
to London I'll steer: he would have done so along the Grand Union Canal.
Bolinder: the Swedish Bolinder engine was a single-cylinder diesel, with an characteristic 'tunk-tunk-tunk' exhaust note. The cylinder was primed with oil, a boss on the cylinder then being heated to vaporise the oil. The flywheel was spun, and the engine would then (hopefully) start. Bolinders were widespread on the English canal system.
Clayton's Stour, Youmea or the Tay: Two companies based in Birmingham used the name Clayton on their boats. The larger was Fellows, Morton and Clayton, whose offices were on the same site as the Birmingham Canal Company at the end of Paradise Street. Their boats were known as Joshers, after Joshua Fellows. The company referred to in this song is that of Thomas Clayton (Oldbury) Ltd., many of whose boats were named after rivers; Tay appears at the top of this page. Thomas Clayton specialised in the carriage of gas tar in tanker boats, ceasing canal carrying in 1966; a road haulage busines continues under the same name. Umea (Youmea) was converted into a houseboat and may well still be around.

~Masato