A couple from Belden, priors to "I will never marry," and "Fond Affection."

Lyr. Add: THE LOVER'S LAMENT FOR HER SAILOR

As I was walking down by the seashore
I spied a fair damsel lamenting and mourn.
Chorus:
Crying, "Oh, my love is gone, he's the one I adore,
And he's gone where I'll never see him any more,"
2
She was dressed like a damsel, she looked like a queen,
She was the prettiest maiden that ever I'd seen.
3
I asked her if she'd marry myself
The answer she gave me was "My love's on sea.
4
I never will marry, nor be any man's wife
I'd rather live single the rest of my life."
5
"A woman may prove true and do all she can,
But there is nothing in this wide world so false as a man.
6
"I'll bury myself in this wide deep sea
For the blue waves to roll over me."
7
She plunged her fair body in the wide, deep sea
For the blue waves to roll over her pretty blue eyes.

Version A. "Communicated in 1906 by Supt. W. J. Weese of Bowling Green, Pike Co., who wrote: "This ballad was sung by my mother over forty years ago by a girl playmate of hers, who came from Illinois to Gentry Co., MO, about that time."

Version B

No title (Lover's Lament...)

1
As I was walking along the seashore
I met a fair creature I never met before.
She looked like a goddess and dressed like a queen;
She was the fairest creature I ever had seen.
Chorus:
She was crying "O! my love he's gone,
He's the lad that I adore;
He's gone where I never
Can see him any more."
2
"My love was a sailor, he ran number eight;
But now he is drowned and I am desolate."
3
I asked her to marry me if she pleased
But oh, she kept sighing and solemnly refused;
"Oh, no, I'll not marry, I'll be no man's wife,
I expect to live single the rest of my life.
4
"The shells of the ocean shall be my death-bed,
And the fish of the waters shall swin o'er my head."
5
She plunged her gay body in the ocean so deep,
And there closed her blue eyes in the water to sleep.
The shells of the ocean were her death-bed,
And the fish of the water did swim o'er her head.

Secured in 1910 from a former resident of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

PP. 167-168, H. M. Belden, 1940, "Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society," Univ. Missouri.