Jack and Mamie, 6aabb and 4aaa3a, 4: Jack plunges into the water to recover the hat of his girl sweetheart, Mamie. Jack, the man, leaves her for a long voyage, and his ship never returned.
Sweet Summer Evening, 4abcb, 7: The poet one summer evening overhears a mother chide her daughter for her devotion to her roving sailor lover, who [soon] appears and bids her an affectionate farewell.
Wait for the Wagon, 3abcbdefe and 4a(ter), 4: A lover's call to Phyllis to jump into the wagon with him a-Sunday morning; he tells her of the cabin he has built for her, and wooes her to marry him.
Lovely Nancy, 4abcb, 5: A dialogue, in quatrains, between Nancy and her lover, whom she wishes to accompany on his voyage to the West Indies.
Nancy Till, 4aabb and 4aabb, 4: A serenade by her lover "down in the canebrakes close by the mill," urging her to be ready to go with him "a-sailing on the Ohio."
[Ephriam and Lucy], 4a3b4c3b and 4a3b4c3b, 4: The night before their wedding-day, amid night-hawks, owls, and whippoorwills, "we danced by the light of the moon."
2. Songs of Love Inconstant.
[She was Happy till She Met You], 4aa5b4cc5b4dd5e4ff5e and 4ababcc5b, 2: A husband forsakes his wife; later, becoming repentant, he returns to seek her at the house of her mother, who forbids him access to her.
[Bedroom Window], 4abcb, 5: The lover by night calls his sweetheart to awake. She warns him away, saying that her father is armed to repulse his presence. He vows to have her for his own. A suggestion of his sinister motive closes the song.
I'll Hang My Harp on a Willow Tree, ii, 4a3b4a3b4c3d4c3d, 3: A lover voices his resolve to forsake the charms of his fickle mistress to court a warrior's fate at the Saracen's hand on the field of Palestine.