(The Cold South Georgia Ground)
The brig Daisy was the last sailing whaler out of New Bedford. This is the story, practically verbatim, that the ship's carpenter told Robert Cushman Murphy in A Logbook for Grace (New York: Macmillan, 1947) about the drowning of the fourth mate, Anton Eneos. It was told so strongly that I didn't do much to make it a song – just rearranged the some words for the sake of the meter, and added the chorus and tune.
If I remember correctly, the Daisy was lost with all hands a few months later off the coast of South America.
South Georgia is an island in the latitude of Cape Horn.
Clew up your royals and topsails
Haul your headsails down
For you'll never see the whale no more
It was March twenty-ninth, nineteen and ten
The little brig Daisy did sail
The morning was clear and the sea was down
And we raised a great pod of whale
The captain had three of the boats lowered down
And in them the mates they did go
There was Mister Da Lomba and Mister Alves
And Mister Eneos also
Clew up…
Now the whales did rise a mile from the ship
And the other two mates made their kill
But Mister Eneos was caught in the pod
Where the whales were lying still
Mister Eneos stood still in the bow
And he had his lance in his hand
But the whale he had harpooned would not break away
And would neither sound nor run
It struck at the boat and lifted her high
And the men fell out over the stern
And we saw the flukes come thrashing down
Where Mister Eneos had been
Clew up….
The captain had the stern boat lowered away
And we searched where the whales did sound
Five men we gathered from out of the sea
But Mister Eneos was gone
Clew up…
Mister Eneos is recorded on the albums North Winds Clearing and Peter Kagan and the Wind, and is also in the songbook Time and the Flying Snow