Sheep

When I was once in Baltimore,

A man came up to me and cried,

“Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep,

And we will sail on Tuesday’s tide.

“If you will sail with me, young man,

I’ll pay you fifty shillings down;

These eighteen hundred sheep I take

From Baltimore to Glasgow town.”

He paid me fifty shillings down,

I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep;

We soon had cleared the harbour’s mouth,

We soon were in the salt sea deep.

The first night we were out at sea

Those sheep were quiet in their mind;

The second night they cried with fear—

They smelt no pastures in the wind.

They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields,

They cried so loud I could not sleep:

For fifty thousand shillings down

I would not sail again with sheep.