This song was composed locally by a man called Dick McKnight (who also wrote Walmsley’s Grove). We got the song from Cathal O’Boyle’s book: Songs of County Down.
MELODY
HARMONY
MELODY and HARMONY
Choir singing (1st October 2016)
Choir singing (7th November 2016)
WORDS
Ye muses nine with me combine until I do relate
A remnant of my grief and woe, my sorrows they are great
It was all caused by a beauty bright
That has my heart trepanned
Her rosy cheeks have banished me to range some foreign land
Last night I went to see my girl, to see what she would say
Still thinking she’d some pity take before I sailed away
She said she loved a sailor lad
‘He’s the boy that I adore
I’ll wait for him for seven years, so trouble me no more’
If your sailor lad be drowned, or buried in the main
The roaring tide by Mallagh side will ne’er see him again
‘If my jolly tar does me forsake
No man I’ll e’er enjoy
For ever since I saw his face, I’ve loved my sailor boy
Adieu unto ye Walmsley’s Grove, down by the bleaching mill
Where the linen webs are daily spread, and the purling streams run still
Where the pinks and daisies late in bloom
And the spotted trout does play
With my baited hook delight I took, to spread my youthful days
Our ship she lies at Warrenpoint, she is ready to set sail
May the Lord then send her safely o’er, with a soft and pleasant gale
If I’d ten thousand pounds a year
Or ten times that much more
I’d spend it all with the girl I left, behind on Mourne shore
Arrangement by Brona McVittie