The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

It's oh, there was never a happier wife
Than I was in all the old kingdom of Fife;
And never a brighter fireside than ours,
With the bairns around it all blooming like flowers;
And never a better goodman than mine
Whose home made him blither than stoups of wine;
And he loved me as if I had still been a bride,
And the fear of the Lord was at our fireside.

But now, as the wild wave breaks on the sea,
Even so is my sad heart breaking in me:
For the woeful news that have come to hand
From the Barbary shore, and the Blackamoor's land.
And who will now be my honoured head?
And who will win for us daily bread?
And who will bring to our hearts good cheer
The moment his foot at the door we hear?

It was a rover of Sallee
That drove at his vessel with galleys three,
Leaping out from the Spanish shores
Under the sweep of a hundred oars.
John fought his ship till her decks were red,
And fifty Moors lay dying or dead,
And of his twenty gallant men
But two were unwounded, the killed were ten.

The pirate robbed him of all his gear,
Tortured his body till death came near,
Sank his ship in the deep mid sea,
And bore him a slave to Barbary.
There he is dragging a heavy chain,
As he toils all day in the sun and rain,
And he sleeps in a den among rotten weeds,
And rats and toads and centipedes.

O love, my love, as I stood that day
On the windy pier when you sailed away,
And the ship swung cheerily o'er the bar,
And the sails swelled out on each bending spar,
Little I dreamt I had seen the last
Of the good old ship and her bending mast,
Or what sad fate should her crew befall,
And him that was dearer to me than all.

It's oh, if I were but Queen of the land,
With ships of war at my free command,
I would not send them to harry Spain,
Or to fight the Dutch on the lowland main;
But they should sail to the Barbary coast,
To battle the Moor where he keeps his host,
And my goodman should delivered be
From the wicked Rover of Sallee.

What is the use of our great war-ships
If honest sailors, on trading trips,
May be boarded by pirate crews and slain,
Or bound as slaves with a cruel chain?
Oh that we had again Andrew Wood,
Who for his country so bravely stood;
Or William Scott, who by night and day
Hunted the rovers from creek and bay!

607

To ransom my man I have given up all
The means that I had—but my means were small;
And the Kirk is collecting, from rich and poor,
Money to send to the rascal Moor.
But what we need is the hand of the strong,
And the sword of might to put down wrong;
And oh, that our sorrows and shames might evoke
A King of some mettle who cared for his folk.