We'll Go to Sea No More
Oh! blythly shines the bonnie sun
Upon the Isle of May,
And blythly comes the morning tide
Into St. Andrews bay;
Then up, gudeman--the breeze is fair;
And up my braw bairns three,--
There's goud in yonder bonnie boat
That sails so well the sea!
When haddocks leave the Firth of Forth,
And mussels leave the shore;
When oysters climb up Berwick Law,
We'll go to sea no more,
No more,
We'll go to sea no more.
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A truncated version of this stanza as "Fisherman's
Song", from Fife, in SC (1946), 144 (no. 258) (differs: 3 rolls
5-8 omitted). It is the first of 4 stanzas by the Misses
Corbett, from their Odd Volume, Second Series (1827); also in
Whitelaw, BSS (1844), 1875, 419. Grace Corbett (c. 1765-
1843), when eleven years old, composed the melody to a new
version of "The Siller Crown", printed in Johnson's Scots
Musical Museum VI (1803), 605 (no. 585) ["O Mary, ye's be clad
in silk", copied from Urbani's collection]; and along with a
sister produced several works of fiction, tales, legends,
etc.
MS
APR99
Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!