Bounding Billows Cease Your Motion

DESCRIPTION: A sailor, after ten years, is leaving the sea forever: "I will tempt thy rage no more." He thinks of the sea like a lover: "dearest girl I bid adieu."
AUTHOR: Mary Darby Robinson (1757-1800) (?) (source: Frank-JollySailorsBold)
EARLIEST DATE: 1895 (Memoirs of Mary Robinson)
KEYWORDS: love separation sea nonballad sailor
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 184, "Bounding Billows Cease Your Motion" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: (Mary Darby Robinson), _Memoirs of Mary Robinson, "Perdita": from the edition edited by her daughter_ with introduction and notes by J. Fitzgerald Molloy, Lippincott, 1895 (available on Google Books), pp. 220-223, "Stanzas Written Between Dover and Calais, July 20, 1792" ("Bounding billow, cease thy motion, Bear me not so swiftly o'er") (1 text)
Roud #31323
NOTES [210 words]: Mary Darby had some reason to know about the sea. According to a biography on the University of Pennsylvania web site, her father John Darby was a sea captain who tried to establish a whaling business off Labrador. He left his wife behind while taking a mistress with him, and didn't send much money home. Mary tried to run a boarding school to make a living, but her father shut it down.
Her husband, Thomas Robinson, married her under what I would consider false pretenses. He and Mary, plus their daughter Maria Elizabeth, were eventually imprisoned for debt. She eventually became an actress, and the future George IV (then only 17) wanted her for his mistress. That, plus her performance as Perdita in 'The Winter's Tale,' made her famous. She became involved with several other men. One of them was the infamous Banastre Tarleton, who won notoriety for his harsh actions fighting against the American Revolution. Ultimately Mary's writing career arose out of her need to raise money.
This poem is found in her memoirs (although not her collected poems), so I think it safe to say it is hers, even though Frank apparently had some doubts.
I don't know what tune Frank has for this piece, but it instantly made me think of "God of Grace and God of Glory." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FJSB184

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