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