I HAVE A SHIP ON THE OCEAN

I have a secret to tell you, sweet love,
About the ship on the sea
And if you think you can hear it, sweet love,
I'll tell it to you in a dream.

Chorus:
Darling, the ship is on tile ocean,
As ever near to me;
Darling, this world would lose its motion
If I proved false to thee.

I have a ship on the ocean, sweet love,
All lined with silver and gold.
Before I'd see you suffer, sweet love,
I'd anchor my ship to be sold.

Some say love is pleasure, sweet love;
What pleasure do I see
When the one I love so clearly, sweet love,
Has turned her back on me?

source: Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume III, #350G

Obtained from Miss Jewell Robbins (later Mrs. C. P. Perdue) of Pekin, Montgomery County, North Carolina, in 1921. The jail and the moonlight have vanished from this version, yet it is clearly a form of the same song as Dalhart's "Prisoner's Song."