| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
American Ballads and Folk Songs |
||
|
"Now give me your hand, my dear lily-white j
Way, Rio! If you'll accept me, I'll make you my wife."
For we're bound for the Rio Grande!
"Now, Johnny, I love you and don't want you to go,
Way, Rio! And if you stay I'll love you so so."
For we're bound for the Rio Grande!
Additional couplets |
||
|
She's a deep-water ship, an' a deep-water crew.
Ye can keep to the coast, but we're damned if we do»
We was sick of the beach when our money was gone, And signed in this packet to drive her along.
Oh, blow ye winds steadily; fair may ye blow. She's a starvation packet, good God, let 'er go!
THE BLACK BALL LINE*
". . . celebrates the first and most famous line of American packet ships to run between New York and Liverpool Started in 1816, these little ships of 300 to 500 tons furnished for many years the only means of regular communication between this continent and Europe, sailing regularly from New York on the first and sixteenth of each month. In order to keep up their average time of three weeks out and six weeks home, the ships were driven unmercifully, and acquired a bad name among sailors for the iron discipline maintained on board. The Black Ball liners carried a crimson swaUowtail flag with a black: ball in the center. • • ."
*The paragraph and the song are quoted from Joanna Colcord's Roll and Go (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co.)-
[489] |
||