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