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In the chilly month of winter, in the midst of frost and snow,
We left our own safe harbour and off for George's go;
Where the boisterous winds do rattle, it strikes heavy in our sails,
While we go off a-spouting jus' like some flights o' whales.
Our sails are always good, made of the best of duck,
Our riggin' it's manila rope, well rove through patent blocks;
Our vessels are built of good white oak, well finished wit' red paste,
And we brave the heavy northern winds and stormy winter gales.
Where the frost and snow in torrents blow and breakers on each side,
To see our noble vessel how justly she do ride;
While the frost contains in mountains and the bitter winds do blow,
While we poor sons of Americay all hardships undergo.
The hardships of those George's Banks no pensman can describe,
The roughness of the water and the furies of it's tide;
But stay a while and listen, t'ink what I say be true,
The Ocean Queen she's missing and drownded all her crew.
There was seventeen young heroes brave jus' in the prime of life,
Commanded by young Spinney he left a loving wife;
To her was three months married when from her he did part,
But now she's left a widow with a sad and a broken heart.
She is not the only one these George's caused to weep,
Husbands, sons, and fathers are buried in the deep;
God knows how to pity them, He just knows how they feel,
There is a day of guilt to come when every soul must yield.
Collected in 1951 from Pat Critch of Flatrock, NL, and published in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
From the glossary of Rigging Small Sailboats:
Rove - past tense of reeve: to pass a line through any aperture such as a block or eye.
George's Bank is a large elevated area of the sea floor which separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean and is situated between Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia.
