Thanks Joybell!

The date I have for "Oh, My Love's Gone" is 1864 and the song is clearly the basis for the verses. It's reportedly Irish but I need to look at it more.

Does anyone have Belden's 1906 lyric. Other names are "The Shells of the Ocean" and "Down by the Sea Shore." The classic recording is the Carter Family recording done in Camden NJ in 1933.

I NEVER WILL MARRY Carter family

One morning as I rambled all down the seashore
The wind it did whistle and the waters did roar
I heard a fair damsel make a pitiful sound
It sounded so lonesome in the waters around

    I never will marry or be no man's wife
    I expect to live single all the days of my life
    The shells in the ocean shall be my deathbed
    The fish in deep water swim over my head

    [INSTRUMENTAL BREAK]

She plunged her fair body in the ocean so deep
She closed her blue eyes in the waters to sleep
My love's gone and left me, the one I adore
She's gone where I never will see her any more

    I never will marry or be no man's wife
    I expect to live single all the days of my life
    The shells in the ocean shall be my deathbed
    The fish in deep water swim over my head