Stan Hugill's "Shanties from the Seve Seas" has a paragraph on The Hog-Eye Man , the gist of which is that it refers to canal men or "ditch -hogs", and was a "sarcastic phrase used by American deep-watermen to denote sailors of inland waterways..." He`also lists The Ox-Eye Man and The Hawks-Eye Man as alternative titles.

Your verses are pretty much the same.

Chris B. Siegel