BLOOD RED ROSES
(Anon)

Come all you sealers and listen to me
A lovely song I'll sing to thee
It was in eighteen hundred and three
Come down you blood red roses, come down
That we set sail for the southern sea
Oh you pinks and posies
Come down you blood red roses, come down

Our captain has set us down
And he has sailed for Sydney town
And he has left us with some grub
Come down you blood red roses, come down
Just one split pea in a ten pound tub
Oh you pinks and posies
Come down you blood red roses, come down

A bull seal he is bigger than a mouse
But a sealer's lot is lower than a louse
And now we're all covered over with fur
Come down you blood red roses, come down
We've grown us tails like Lucifer
Oh you pinks and posies
Come down you blood red roses, come down

An when our captain he returns to hell
Come down you blood red roses, come down
Why we will treat him here for a spell
Come down you blood red roses, come down

'Blood Red Roses' is a work song, a halyard chanty. When we string the different chanty-man cries together, they tell a story - a woeful one, but hardly exaggerated, for most sealing gangs that worked the southern bays and islands suffered from lack of food, exposure to wind and cold or to being completely forgotten. In 1813, one boat took five men off the Solanders. Two of them had been there since 1808. They had made their own clothing and shelters of sealskin and had eaten nothing but seal meat. The yankee whale ship, 'Enterprise', rescued three men from the Snares in 1817. These men had been set down in 1810 with but one quart of rice, a half-bushel of potatoes and an iron pot. 'Song of a Young Country' p12.

Youtube clip

--Stewie.