A boy to me was bound apprentice
Because his parents they were poor
So I took him from St James' Workhouse
All for to sail on the Greenland shore
One day this poor boy he did annoy me
Nothing to him then did I say
But I rushed him to my frozen yard-arm
And I kept him there till the very next day
When his eyes and his teeth did hang towards me
With his hands and his feet bowed down likewise
And with a bloody iron bar I killed him
Because I wouldn't hear his cries