96 A CLYDE SEAMAN'S CHANTEY 



swinging roll of the Atlantic fits itself to the rhythm of 

 a chantey that keeps running in my head nay, but I 

 must avoid that awkward colloquialism, for it brings to 

 mind the eighteenth-century quatrain : 



' A lady said to me, and in her own house, 

 " I do not care for you three skips of a louse." 

 I paid small attention to what she had said, 

 For a woman talks most of what runs in her head.' 



So I must start afresh to repeat a chantey which I 

 picked up in youth from the lips of a Clyde yachtsman. 

 It bears some marks of antiquity (I myself can answer 

 for more than half a century of its existence), and it is 

 so closely associated with the memory of a long, sunny 

 calm and the roll of a ground swell, that it ought not 

 to sink into oblivion in an age when even herring-boats 

 are propelled by steam or oil. 



THE GOLDEN VANITEE 



There sailed a bonny ship, and a bonny ship yas she, 



Heigh diddledee for the Lawlands law ! 

 Her name it was the Golden Vanitee, 



And she sailed for the Lawlands law. 



She sailed and she sailed a league but barely three, 



Heigh diddledee for the Lawlands law ! 

 When she cam up wi' a French gallee, 



As she sailed for the Lawlands law. 



Then oot spak the Captain, and oot spak he, 



Heigh diddledee for the Lawlands law ! 

 ' Oh wha '11 sink me yon French gallee, 



As she sails for the Lawlands law ? ' 



Then oot spak the Cabin-boy, and oot spak he, 



Heigh diddledee for the Lawlands law ! 

 1 Oh what '11 ye gie me gin I sink yon French gallee, 



As she sails for the Lawlands law ? ' 



