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44 Music of the Waters. |
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An* you'll never forget it, my messmates dear, For this song it hain't got none.
Chorus.—Hain't got none ;
For this song it hain't got none.
" The applause which followed this song was most enthusiastic, and evidently gratifying to Gurney, who assumed a modest, deprecatory air, as he proceeded to relight his pipe, which had been allowed to go out at the third verse, the performer having become so engrossed in his subject as to have forgotten the interlude of puffs at that point."
Mr. Robert C. Leslie, in his " A Sea Painter's Log," says of sailors' songs: -" Years ago, when the (little) Great Western was fighting an almost solitary battle of steam versus sail power upon the Atlantic, the old Black X sailing liners were notable for their musical crews ; and capstan songs, as they were called, always came rolling aft from a liner's forecastle, as the men tramped round winding in the warp that was slowly moving her out of dock (all done now by rattling, whizzing, steam-winch power). I recollect the airs of many of these songs ; but the words, except the choruses, were hard to catch, and some of these were coarse, or not worth much when caught. The following was written down as a very superior piece of poetry, and it was sung by a fellow of most ' comly making':—
Solo.— Late one evening as I vas a valking. Chorus.—Oh, ho, yes—oho.
Solo.—O there I heard a loving couple talking; Chorus.—A hundred years ago.
Solo.—It was a serious good old woman,
And she vas a saying of things not common, She vas a saying unto her darter, O mind, then, vords o' mine herearter ; Red-nosed men frequent the ale-'ouse, Sandy-'aired men are always jailous ; The fat will coax, the lean will flatter, Oh, marry none of them, my darter : |
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