Row On
ChorusRow on, row on! Another day May shine with brighter light; Ply, ply the oars, and pull away, Thou must not come to-night.Bear where thou go'st the words of love; Say all that words can say, Changeless affection's strength to prove, But speed upon the way.
(Chorus)Oh! like yon river could I glide To where my heart would be; My bark should soon outsail the tide, That hurries to the sea.
(Chorus)But yet a star shines constant still Through yonder cloudy sky, And hopes as bright my bosom fill, From faith that cannot die! Row on, then, row! God speed thy way! Thou must not linger here; Storms hang about the closing day; There's dawn beyond the night.
Source: Text from G.P.R. James, *Arabella Stuart* (1844), preserved in the logbook of the whaleship *Three Brothers* and published in Songs The Whalemen Sang. Tune by Tim Laycock (1980).
The text of this song was written by the English novelist G.P.R. James and published in his 1844 novel Arabella Stuart: A Romance from English History. In the story, the song carries a hidden meaning — the singer is warning a rowing messenger not to dock at the prison of Arabella Stuart (1575–1615), a noblewoman imprisoned by King James I for secretly marrying William Seymour.
Sometime around 1846, a sailor aboard the Nantucket whaleship Three Brothers copied the poem into the ship’s logbook, a common practice among sailors who noted down popular songs and verses of the day. The logbook sat unrecognised until the American folklorist Gale Huntington of Martha’s Vineyard discovered it and published it in his 1964 collection Songs The Whalemen Sang.
The tune now universally associated with the song was composed by English singer Tim Laycock, who first recorded it on his 1980 album Capers & Rhymes. In Laycock’s arrangement, the opening verse doubles as a recurring chorus. He also modified the final line from James’s original “To-morrow may be clear” to “There’s dawn beyond the night,” giving the song a more hopeful character.