Polly On The Shore

Come all you wild young men and a warning take by me Never lead your single life astray or into bad company As I myself have done, being all in the month of May When I, as pressed by a sea captain, a privateer to trade To the East Indies we were bound to plunder the raging main And it's many the brave and a galliant ship we sent to a watery grave Ah, for Freeport we did steer, our provisions to renew When we did spy a bold man-of-war sailing three feet to our two Oh, she fired across our bows, "Heave to and don't refuse Surrender now unto my command or else your lives you'll lose" And our decks they were sputtered with blood and the cannons did loudly roar And broadside and broadside a long time we lay till we could fight no more And a thousand times I wished myself alone, all alone with my Polly on the shore She's a tall and a slender girl with a dark and a-rolling eye And here am I, a-bleeding on the deck and for a sweet saint must lie Farewell, my family and my friends, likewise my barley too I'd never have crossed the salt sea wide if I'd have been ruled by you And a thousand times I saw myself again, all alone with my Polly on the shore --- Polly on the Shore - Fairport Convention