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The Dark-Eyed Sailor
Taken down (without title) in 1914 by W. M. Hardy from the singing of Murray in Holden, Maine.
This fragment, which curiously illustrates the accidents of tradition, consists of disjecta membra of "Fair Phoebe and her Dark-Eyed Sailor," a song common in English broadsides and still orally current in England, Scotland, and America. See Journal of the Folk-Song Society, IV, 129 ff. (text, tunes, and references); Ashton, Real Sailor-Songs, 71; Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East, CXII; broadsides of Catnach, Forth, and others. For this country, see Marsh's Selection, or, Singing for the Million (New York, 1854), III, 69-71; Singers Journal, I, 39; de Mar-san (New York) broadside, List 3, No. 71; Wehman (New York) broadside, No. 406.
1 As a comely fair maiden Was taking the air One evening fair,
2 She met a sailor all on her way, And I paid attention,
And I paid attention
To hear what they would say.
3 He says, " Pretty fair maiden,
Whilst roam alone, The day is far spent, The night's coming on."
4 She said, while tears rolled in her eye, "[It] is but my dark-eyed sailor,
[It] is but my dark-eyed sailor, That's proving my downfall.