Edward Hovington, Tadousac, [Quebec,] our informant, learned this song about seventy years ago from an Irish sailor whom a colonel had brought with him from Quebec, on board his yacht. (Phonograph record No. 447, Victoria Museum, Ottawa.)
Farewell, my own true-love! Farewell for a while! For the ship is ready, And the wind blows high, And I am bound away For the sea, Mary Ann.*
Oh, don't you see [the] dove, you know, Her sitting on yonder stile, Lamenting the loss Of h[er] own true-love? And so am I for you, Mary Ann.
A lobster in the lobster-pot, And a bluefish in the brook, Might suffer some; But [it] cannot compare [To what] I bear for you, Mary Ann. Farewell, my own true-love!
. . .**
I wish I had a bottle of gin, Sugar enough for two, And a great big bowl For to mix it in, [And] to make a drink To my own Mary Ann!
My Mary Ann, my Mary Ann! Mary Ann, Mary Ann, Mary Ann! [bis] My dear little own Mary Ann!
* The last two lines are repeated twice.
** The text of this verse is incoherent.
[Note there is some discrepancy in the dates. Reinhard's post above said Barbeau heard the song from Hovington in 1920, yet here we have Barbeau publishing it (and crediting Hovington) in 1918. Only two years' difference, but still, one would hope for greater accuracy among scholars.]