I just listened to Taylor Whiteside singing the song on the CD "The Brandywine Singers, World-Class Folk" I came up with a couple significant differences from Kendall's above and a few minor articles and verb tense differences also. The version from that CD follows.

THE MARTIN GREIGH by Taylor Whiteside

My father is a fisherman,
Likewise my brothers too,
They follow in his footsteps
With a wooden point of view
While I the black sheep of the lot
Work safely on the shore
I keep account of what we've got,
Find ways to make it more.

Our mother left for Boston town
Some seven years ago
We sons receive a letter
Each Christmas time or so
And Father takes the dory then;
And round the harbor rows
Until the weather drives him in,
That's when the sorrow shows.

Refrain :
Four boats in the harbor
Where's the Martin Greigh?
She was due to fetch the Cutty Light
By 3 o'clock today
No sail on the horizon,
No vessel by the quay.
Four boats in the harbor
Where's the Martin Greigh?

"Now a man's the master of his heart"
As boys we all were told
He strains to play the hero's part
A captain brave and bold,
But, in the end must pay the toll
To feelings never shown
Trapped within this age old roll
He finds himself alone.

Rep. ref.

Now Father says that one fine day,
He'll take the Greigh and go
To an island far beyond the bay
That the coast and trades don't know.
And there he'll run the mains'l down
And anchor by the shore,
And leave behind old fishing grounds
And think of her once more.

rep. ref.

rich r