| «Adieu, lovely Nancy, for now I must leave you
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| To the far-off West Indies I’m bound for to steer
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| But let my long journey be of no trouble to you
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| For my love, I’ll return in the course of a year»
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| «Talk not of leaving me here, lovely Jimmy
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| Talk not of leaving me here on the shore
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| You know very well your long absence will grieve me
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| As you sail the wild ocean where the wild billows roar
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| I’ll cut off my ringlets all curly and yellow
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| I’ll dress in the coats of a young cabin boy
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| And when we are out on that dark, rolling ocean
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| I will always be near you, my pride and my joy"
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| «Your lily-white hands, they could not handle the cables
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| Your lily-white feet to the top mast could not go
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| And the cold winter storms, well, you could not endure them
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| Stay at home, lovely Nancy, where the the wild winds won’t blow»
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| As Jimmy set a-sailing, lovely Nancy stood a-wailing
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| The tears from her eyes in great torrents did a-flow
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| As she stood on the beach, oh her hands she was wringing
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| Crying, «Oh and alas, will I e’er see you more?»
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| As Jimmy was a-walking on the quays of Philadelphia
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| The thoughts of his true love, they filled him with pride
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| He said, «Nancy, lovely Nancy, if I had you here, love
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| How happy I’d be for to make you my bride»
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| So Jimmy wrote a letter to his own lovely Nancy
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| Saying, «If you have proved constant, well, I will prove true»
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| Oh but Nancy was dying, for her poor heart was broken
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| Oh the day that he left her, forever he’d rue
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| Come all of you young maidens, I pray, take a warning
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| And don’t trust a sailor boy or any of his kind
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| For first they will court you and then they’ll deceive you
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| For their love, it is tempestuous as the wavering wind |