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| JIM was a fisherman, up on the hill, | |
| Over the beach lived he and his wife, | |
| In a little house—you can see it still— | |
| An’ their two fair boys; upon my life | |
| You never seen two likelier kids, | 5 |
| In spite of their antics an’ tricks an’ noise, | |
| Than them two boys! | |
| |
| Jim would go out in his boat on the sea, | |
| Just as the rest of us fishermen did, | |
| An’ when he come back at night thar’d be, | 10 |
| Up to his knees in the surf, each kid, | |
| A beck’nin’ and cheerin’ to fisherman Jim; | |
| He ’d hear ’em, you bet, above the roar | |
| Of the waves on the shore. | |
| |
| But one night Jim came a sailin’ home | 15 |
| And the little kids weren’t on the sands; | |
| Jim kinder wondered they hadn’t come, | |
| And a tremblin’ took hold o’ his knees and hands, | |
| And he learnt the worst up on the hill, | |
| In the little house, an’ he bowed his head, | 20 |
| “The fever,” they said. | |
| |
| ’T was an awful time for fisherman Jim, | |
| With them darlin’s a dyin’ afore his eyes, | |
| They kep’ a callin’ an’ beck’nin’ him, | |
| For they kinder wandered in mind. Their cries | 25 |
| Were about the waves and fisherman Jim | |
| And the little boat a sailin’ for shore | |
| Till they spoke no more. | |
| |
| Well, fisherman Jim lived on and on, | |
| And his hair grew white and the wrinkles came, | 30 |
| But he never smiled and his heart seemed gone, | |
| And he never was heard to speak the name | |
| Of the little kids who were buried there, | |
| Upon the hill in sight o’ the sea, | |
| Under a willow tree. | 35 |
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| One night they came and told me to haste | |
| To the house on the hill, for Jim was sick, | |
| And they said I hadn’t no time to waste, | |
| For his tide was ebbin’ powerful quick | |
| An’ he seemed to be wand’rin’ and crazy like, | 40 |
| An’ a seein’ sights he oughtn’t to see, | |
| An’ had called for me. | |
| |
| And fisherman Jim sez he to me, | |
| “It ’s my last, last cruise, you understand, | |
| I ’m sailin’ a dark and dreadful sea, | 45 |
| But off on the further shore, on the sand, | |
| Are the kids, who ’s a beck’nin’ and callin’ my name | |
| Jess as they did, oh, mate, you know, | |
| In the long ago.” | |
| |
| No, sir! he wasn’t afeard to die, | 50 |
| For all that night he seemed to see | |
| His little boys of the years gone by, | |
| And to hear sweet voices forgot by me; | |
| An’ just as the mornin’ sun came up, | |
| “They ’re a holdin’ me by the hands,” he cried, | 55 |
| And so he died. | |
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