Select the second image (above) and click the play button to hear verse 1 of this arrangement.
 
Sarah Morgan's score is in three parts (SSA but often sung as SAB with the Basses singing an octave lower). There are four verses.
 
Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in1904 from Ted Baines, of Lower Beeding,Sussex.The press gang separates man and wife. But the song ends withe a bitter-sweet verse of hope, 'For who knows but my sailor may once more return'.