Description
This item is part of the I. G. Greer Folksong Collection which consists of more than 300 individual song titles and their variants as collected by Isaac Garfield Greer (1881-1967) from informants, primarily in Ashe, Wilkes and Watauga counties. The collection includes manuscripts, typescript transcriptions produced by Dr. Greer’s clerical staff, and handwritten musical notations. Songs range from traditional Child Ballads, traditional English and Scottish ballads as well as their American variants, to 19th century popular music to musical compositions of local origin.
Transcription
The Ship That Never Returned.
On a Summers day as the streams were rippled by the softest gentlest breeze,
did a ship set sail with a cargo laden to a port beyond the seas.
Refrain:
Did she ever return, no, she never returned.
Her fate is still unlearned
Though for years and years there were fond ones watching for the ship that never returned.
There were sweet farewells there were loving signals,
while a form was yet discerned,
tho' they knew it was not solemn parting for that ship she never returned.