“When first I deserted I thought myself free Until my false comrade informed on me.”
Another favourite is “The Gentleman Soldier,” and yet another, “The bonny Scotch lad with his bonnet so blue.” The battle of Waterloo gave rise to several long ballads descriptive of the fight, and these in their full integrity of twenty or thirty verses used, not long ago, to be remembered by old soldiers.
XVI. SEA SONGS
These have always been welcome among English singers, and our nation has a plenitude of fine ones. In folk-song they generally take a narrative form and treat of adventures with pirates, and the like. Examples of this type are “Paul Jones,” “Ward the pirate,” “Henry Martin,” “The bold Princess Royal,” and some others. The pressgang songs might, in a sense, go under the heading “sailor songs,” and, certainly, the Chanty, but these are dealt with separately. “The Golden Vanity” is popular, so is “The Mermaid,” and both are well known to modern singers. “The Greenland Whale Fishery” is a fine example of a genuine whaling ditty (see A Garland of Country Songs), and “All on Spurn Point” is a narrative of a wreck.
The charming song “Stowbrow,” or the “Drowned Sailor,” is chiefly known on the Yorkshire coast.
“The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter” is a story of a murder and a ghost, which follows the murderer to sea and denounces him. “William Taylor” (of which a parody exists) is fairly well known.
“The Coasts of Barbary” is a fine sea song, and “The Indian Lass,” “Just as the tide was flowing,” “On board a man-of-war,” “Outward bound,” and “The bold privateers” are sea songs that are commonly known but can boast no great degree of antiquity. “Fair Phœbe and her dark-ey’d sailor,” and “The broken token”—the one being a variation of the other—are songs that fall under the heading “Love Songs.”