Jack Williams
Jack Williams
- I am a boatman by my trade,
And a waterman also
Through keeping of such company
I brought myself to woe. - I went a-robbing night and day,
To keep Ena fine and gay
And what I got I valued not,
I took to her straightway. - Till at length to Newgate I got brought,
Bound down in iron strong,
With the rattling chains all round my legs,
She longed to hear them on. - I wrote a letter to my love,
Some comfort for to find,
But instead of proving a friend to me
She proved to me unkind. - She in a scornful manner wrote
I'll shun their company;
So just as you've made your bed, young man,
Down on it you must lay. - I thought these words were very hard
When I spent all my store,
To think she had no more regard
When I was low and poor. - But if ever I gain my liberty,
‘Tis a solemn vow I'll make,
To shun all woman’s company,
For my false lover’s sake. - The ‘sizes being over
And hanged I thought to be
But I burst from the prison walls,
And gained my liberty.
Collected by Cecil Sharp from Mrs Elizabeth Smitherd, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, 11 April 1908.
(Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words pp.1494-1495 / Folk Tunes p.1641)
- See http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=72295 for North American versions.
- Ballad sheets containing Jack Williams [the boatman / boatswain] from the Bodleian Library.