Richie, you're right. I've done some more searching of the snippets, using your method of including the number in the search, and found the stanza that goes before the "Oh captain" one, and it is indeed a different song. Sorry to have introduced a red herring. I was wondering if the singer had slipped from Gosport into "The Sailor and the Ghost", but apparently not. So the real stanza 8 remains a mystery.

Interesting about the pre-blues format. (I was wondering when this discussion would get on to the subject of how the Appalachian "Pretty Polly" took shape.) I only know the "... would you think it unkind,/ For me to sit by you and tell you my mind. / My mind is to marry and never to part,/ For the first time is saw you you wounded my heart" lines from the Stanley Brothers' version of "Pretty Polly". Do you think these were floating verses that were borrowed into "Pretty Polly", or did they start out as part of an earlier version of "Pretty Polly" and get borrowed into Uncle Pat Fry's song?

Gutcher, it would be interesting to know. On the assumption that words might have spread by print or manuscript, while tunes could generally only have spread through personal contact between one singer and another (at least before the days of sound recordings), a comparison of tunes might add to the picture of how the ballad spread and evolved.