Here is The Ballad Of Three Waves By Ruth Moore. It probably isn't exact to the way she wrote it. I've typed it out from memory as I perform it. It has probably evolved some differences over the years.


THE BALLAD OF THREE WAVES
By Ruth Moore

No I ain't got no dorymate, I goes by myself alone,
I can't have nobody gormin' 'round anything that's my own.

And I ain't married and I never will!
Folks and fussin's all very well for those who likes 'em so.

When I sets out to haul my traps in a good rib stavin' sea,
There ain't a soul on the face of the Earth a worryin' after me.

There was my brother, years ago, got him a wife and kid,
Worried and wore himself plumb out, being easy in what he did.

We was haulin' traps outside one time when it come on a howlin' blow,
Cold as a dog and the wind nor'east, thicker'n tar with snow.

Them was the days when we worked with sails, wan't no engines then.
I had a peapod and steered with an oar but that wasn't good enough for Hen.

He had a dory rigged up with a mast, and a mainsail without no jib,
So's he could set in the stern and steer with the tiller hugged into his rib.

Well, the wind was coming and Hen shoots up, one eye on the line of foam,
"Jarp," he yells, "What in hell'll I do? I left my compass home."

"Ya goddam fool," thinks I to myself, "Rigged up like a bloomin' yacht."
So, blasted careful, I hove him mine, "Catch!" says I, and he caught.

Now, Hen wan't no good when it come to fog, or snow squalls thicker'n sin,
But I ain't seen the rampagin' yet I could lose my bearin's in.

Well, down she come and she was a bitch, I squat at the end of my oar,
And headed into her as hard's I could and let her roar.

I wan't worried, what'd I care, I never had no wife,
And as for dyin' they's them that's worried all their lives.

So I sung all the hymn tunes I ever knowed 'cause that's the kind you can roar,
But I never heard a word that I sung though my throat got kind'a sore.

Then I looked behind and I seen three waves, followin' fast as sin,
Each of them reachin' their whiskers out to grab and wrostle me in.

Thinks I to myself, "If them gets me (Glory, Amen, Amen)
They's fish that'll have good feed tonight (Revive us again, again)."

The first wave, he was dark and deep and smooth as a coffee cup.
The next wave, he was a slash of foam like a kettle bilin' up.

But the last one, he was the whole green sea and he had a wicked eye,
And slobbering jaws and "He's the one as is longing for me!" thinks I.

So I spits over the peapod's stern and turns my back on the sea,
And in a minute I feels the rise of the first one under me.

The first one lifted us up and up, soft as a sea of oil,
The next one bit at me going by, I could see his innards boil.

Six fathom deep in the trough he made and I looks though the glass green sea,
Clear as a bell through that last wave as was towerin' over me.

The bare black bottom spread out beneath for miles and miles around,
And school on school of deep sea fish looked up without a sound.

Their eyes was buttons off dead men's coats all shiny, cold, and still,
And the first time in all my life I could feel my innards chill.

For while's I was looking, down come Hen, sunk like a chunk of lead,
As large as life and as natural only I seen he was dead.

And them big sea fish, they swayed aside with a little swirl and swish,
Then I never seen Hen no more, only the backs of fish.

And the snake weed waving up and down, the ends all crimped and curled,
The trough between two big he-waves is the stillest place in the world.

Then foam was in my mouth like hair and a howlin' in my ears,
And I swum in the middle of that there wave for a hundred thousand years,

Till I bumped my head on the Back Shore Beach, spewed up like a goddam pill,
And that old wave went reelin' back laughin' fit to kill.

Now, a dory's made to stand the seas of any kind of gale,
But all we ever found of Hen was the top of his dinner pail.

And I said it before and I'll say it again, Hen would've saved his life,
If his mind had been on steerin' his boat instead of on his wife.

"If anything happened to me what would my poor wife do?"
Well, I never cared a hoot in hell and by gory I come through.

Nope, when I goes, I goes alone, through fire, water, and paint.
I ain't got a soul to worry about me and I don't care if I ain't.