May day, I don my green, jack the lad, Many a doxy I wish to bed, many a dream I wish to enjoy. Rough seafarers, may be misled, by trollops and lollygags. Can I be the Jack in the green. Strutting from my digs in the bishops Riggs, I show my style, my smile and the stuttering gait of one just returned from the sea. The whalers were for me, and there I would normally be, for a month or more, the sea my home, no shore, but landed here Glasgow, a glad town, the women free and my harpoon, stowed and not for me. Till another month has passed and so I don the green, Jack in the green. landed, and free. I strut the streets and drink the rum that has always been my fare since I left the farm, the land, for a life on the sea. It is the life for me. My father said no, my mother wept, but I ran from the bailiffs and Lords men on that dark night when I killed a man. I was jack the lad, the belle of the young boys ball, tall and handsome, Dark and dangerous and drunk, the doxy had a minder and I was drunk. My knife found his belly first then his chest and eye. The sea is the life for me, I don the green in honor, of those that died t get me here. the sea is the life for me.
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