I’ll go and enlist for a sailor

From the Hopwood and Crew sheet music (via the Artful Codger, see below)

I'LL GO AND ENLIST FOR A SAILOR.
Song of the Unfortunate Tailor.
Written and sung by Harry Clifton

List! oh list! to my sorrowful lay,
Attention give to my song I pray,
And when you've heard it all you'll say
   That I'm "an unfortunate tailor."
I once was as happy as a bird on a tree,
My Sarah was all the world to me,
But I'm cut out by a "son of the sea",
   She has left me here to bewail her.

Oh! why did my Sarah serve me so ?
No more will I stitch, no more will I sew,
My thimble and my needle to the winds I'll throw,
   And go and enlist for a sailor.

My Sarah was the daughter of a publican,
A gen'rous, kind, good sort of a man,
Who spoke very plain what he thought of a man,
   But he never look'd cross at the tailor;
My Sarah was as tall as a "poplar tree",
As "fair as a lily" and as "brisk as a bee",
And many were the smiles that she smil'd on me--
   Oh, why am I left to bewail her?

My days were happy, and my nights the same,
Till a man nam'd Cobb, from the ocean came,
With a "big black beard" and, a muskilar frame--
   A captain on board of a whaler,
He spent his money so frank and free,
With his "tales of the land" and his "songs of the sea",
He stole my Sarah's heart from me,
   And blighted the hopes of the tailor.

I went to plead, but she did refuse,
She lov'd another, so I must excuse
Her candour, but it was no use,
   She never could marry a tailor !
When telling my love in came that "Cobb",
Who cried, "Avast there, you lubberly swab!"
"If you don't belay, I'll scuttle your nob"--
   And Sarah smil'd at the sailor !

And so I'll cross the raging sea,
Since Sarah is untrue to me;
My heart's lock'd up and she's the key--
   A very unfeeling jailor.
Farewell, kind friends, a last a-doo,
No more my woes shall trouble you;
The world I'll wander thro' and thro'--
   I'll go and enlist for a sailor!