Come all ye young females, I pray you'll attend
To these twa or three letters that I've newly penned,
To let you understand the hardships I undergo,
When first I fell in love wi' young Sally Monroe.

I wrote her a letter, a letter I did send;
I sent it with a comrade I thought to be a friend.
Instead of bein' a friend to me, he proved to be a for,
And he never gave that letter to young Sally Monroe.

It was on a Sunday morning about six o'clock,
'Twas all in a sudden our ship did strike a rock.
Three hundred and fifty were all sank below,
And out among that number I lost Sally Monroe.

'Twas from her aged parents I stole her away,
And that will grieve my conscience till my dying day.
It was not for to injure her that I did do so,
And all my life I'll mou-rn for young Sally Monroe!

From Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman by William Main Doerflinger (1951, '72, '91)