Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

May, the Island

We ’ll Go to Sea No More

By Miss Marion Corbett

O, BLITHELY shines the bonnie sun

Upon the Isle of May,

And blithely comes the morning tide

Into St. Andrew’s Bay.

Then up, gudeman, the breeze is fair,

And up, my bra’ bairns three;

There ’s goud in yonder bonnie boat

That sails sae weel the sea!

When haddocks leave the Frith o’ Forth,

An’ 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.

I ’ve seen the waves as blue as air,

I ’ve seen them green as grass;

But I never feared their heaving yet

From Grangemouth to the Bass.

I ’ve seen the sea as black as pitch,

I ’ve seen it white as snow;

But I never feared its foaming yet,

Though the winds blew high or low.

When squalls capsize our wooden walls,

When the French ride at the Nore,

When Leith meets Aberdour half-way,

We ’ll go to sea no more,

No more,

We ’ll go to sea no more.

I never liked the landsman’s life,

The earth is aye the same;

Gi’e me the ocean for my dower,

My vessel for my hame.

Gi’e me the fields that no man plows,

The farm that pays no fee;

Gi’e me the bonnie fish, that glance

So gladly through the sea.

When sails hang flapping on the masts,

While through the wave we snore;

When in a calm we ’re tempest-tossed,

We ’ll go to sea no more,

No more,

We ’ll go to sea no more.

The sun is up, and round Inchkeith

The breezes softly blaw;

The gudeman has the lines on board;—

Awa’ my bairns, awa’.

An’ ye be back by gloamin’ gray,

An’ bright the fire will low,

An’ in your tales and sangs we ’ll tell

How weel the boat ye row.

When life’s last sun gaes feebly down,

An’ Death comes to our door;

When a’ the world ’s a dream to us,

We ’ll go to sea no more,

No more,

We ’ll go to sea no more.