Tom Bowling (I)

DESCRIPTION: "Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom (Bowling/Bowline), the darling of our crew." Tom, faithful, kind, virtuous, and beautiful, has now "gone aloft." His family and friends are mentioned. They hope he finds "pleasant weather" in heaven
AUTHOR: Charles Dibdin (1745-1815)
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (Eliot)
KEYWORDS: death sailor religious
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, pp. 96-97, "Tom Bowline" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, pp. 161-163, "Tom Bowling" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stone-SeaSongsAndBallads XXXI, pp. 45-46, "Tom Bowling" (1 text)
DT, TOMBOWLI
ADDITIONAL: Charles W. Eliot, editor, English Poetry Vol II From Collins to Fitzgerald (New York, 1910), #305, p. 502, "Tom Bowling" (by Charles Dibdin)
Roud #1984
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Frank Fidd"
NOTES [116 words]: As a folk song, this hasn't been very popular (I indexed it mostly for the parallels to "Frank Fidd," which see). But, like many Dibdin pieces, it was widely published in broadsides, and has also shown up in a number of modern anthologies; there are six citations in Granger's Index to Poetry. According to Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, Editors, British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary, H. W. Wilson, 1952 (I use the fourth printing of 1965), p. 153, Dibdin wrote this to commemorate the death of his brother, Captain Thomas Dibdin, who had helped introduce Charles Dibdin to the stage.
For a fuller account of Charles Dibdin, see the notes to "Blow High Blow Low," - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: DTtombow

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