Digital Tradition Mirror

The Banks of Newfoundland (2)

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

The Banks of Newfoundland (2)

Oh, you may bless your happy lots, all ye who dwell on shore
For it's little you know of the hardships that we poor seamen bore
Yes, it's little you know of the hardships that we were forced to stand
For fourteen days and fifteen nights on the Banks of Newfoundland

Our ship, she sailed through frost and snow from the day we left Quebec
And if we had not walked about we'd have frozen to the deck
But we being true-born sailor men as ever ship had manned
Our Captain, he doubled our grog each day on the Banks of Newfoundland

Well, there never was a ship, me boys, that sailed the western waves
But the billowy seas came a-rolling in and bent them into staves
Our ship being built of unseasoned wood, it could but little stand
The hurricane, it met us there on the Banks of Newfoundland

Well, we fasted for thirteen days and nights, our provisions giving out
On the morning of the fourteenth day, we cast our lines about
Well, the lot, it fell on the Captain's son, and thinking relief at
We spared him for another night on the Banks of Newfoundland

On the morning of the fifteenth day no vessel did appear
We gave to him another hour to offer up a prayer
Well, Providence to us proved kind; kept blood from every hand
For an English vessel hove in sight on the Banks of Newfoundland

We hoisted aloft our signal; they bore down on us straightaway
When they saw our pitiful condition, they began to weep and pray
Five hundred souls we had on board when first we left the land
There's now alive but seventy-five on the Banks of Newfoundland

They took us off that ship, me boys; we was more like ghosts than men
They fed us and they clothed us and brought us back again
They fed us and they clothed us, and brought us straight to land
While the billowy waves roll o'er the graves on the Banks of Newfoundland

From Margaret Christl and Ian Robb on Folk-Legacy -- they credit
Edith Fowke with collecting this JN
JN

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!