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THE BANKS OF NEWFOUNDLAND (2) Oh, you may bless your happy lots, all ye who dwell on shore For it's little you know of the hardships that we poor seamen bore Yes, it's little you 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 sailor men as ever ship had manned Our Captain, he doubled our grog each day on the Banks of Newfoundland Well, there never was a ship, me boys, that sailed the western waves But the billowy seas came a-rolling in and bent them into staves Our ship being built of unseasoned wood, it could but little stand The hurricane, it met us there on the Banks of Newfoundland Well, we fasted for thirteen days and nights, our provisions giving out On the morning of the fourteenth day, we cast our lines about Well, the lot, it fell on the Captain's son, and thinking relief at hand We spared him for another night on the Banks of Newfoundland On the morning of the fifteenth day no vessel did appear We gave to him another hour to offer up a prayer Well, 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 straightaway When they saw our pitiful condition, they began to weep and pray Five hundred souls we had on board when first we left the land There's now alive but seventy-five on the Banks of Newfoundland They took us off that ship, me boys; we was 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 straight to land While the billowy waves roll o'er the graves on the Banks of Newfoundland From Margaret Christl and Ian Robb on Folk-Legacy -- they credit Edith Fowke with collecting this JN @sailor @wreck @Canada filename[ NWFNDLN2 TUNE FILE: NWDNDLN2 CLICK TO PLAY JN |
The Banks of Newfoundland (from The Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs) The Banks of Newfoundland (2) (From Margaret Christl and Ian Robb on Folk-Legacy -- they credit Edith Fowke with collecting this", says the DT file. She did indeed; it came from Mr. O.J. Abbott of Ontario, in 1957. Fowke included it in The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs (1973) with the comment, "At least half a dozen songs share the title The Banks of Newfoundland, but this particular one is rare. Mr Abbott's version is the only one with a tune that has turned up in North America." Midi made from the notation given in that book. ) |
