Bobby Shafto's gone to sea,
Silver buckles at his knee;
He'll come back and marry me,
Bonny Bobby Shafto.
Bobby Shafto's bright and fair,
Combing down his yellow hair;
He's my ain for evermair,
Bonny Bobby Shafto.
An apocryphal verse says,—
Bobby Shafto's getten a bairn,
For to dangle on his arm—
On his arm and on his knee;
Bobby Shafto loves me.
[KELLOE.]
John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe,
Had seven daughters and never a fellow.
An equivocal rhyme of the bishopric, which may either mean that the parson of the sixteenth century had no son, or that he had no equal in learning, &c. He certainly, however, mentions no son in his will, in which he leaves to his daughter Elizabeth, his best gold ring with a death's head in it (Compare Love's Labour Lost, v. 2), and seventeen yards of white cloth for curtains of a bed, and to his daughter Mary his silver seal of arms, his gimald ring, and black gold ring. Another version of the proverb reads "six daughters," and indeed seven is often merely a conventional number.
[ROSEBERRY-TOPPING.]
"Not far from Gisborough is Ounsberry-hill, or Roseberry-topping, which mounts aloft and makes a great shew at a distance, serving unto sailors for a mark of direction, and to the neighbour inhabitants for a prognostication; for as often as the head of it hath its cloudy cap on, there commonly follows rain, whereupon they have a proverbial rhyme,
When Roseberry-topping wears a cap,
Let Cleveland then beware a clap.
Near to the top of it, out of a huge rock, there flows a spring of water, medicinable for diseased eyes; and from thence there is a most delightful prospect upon the valleys below to the hills above."—Brome's Travels, 8vo. Lond. 1700.