Thomas Clayton's tanker boat 'Tay'

Fol-de-rol, fol-de-ri-do, sing fol-de-rol-day,
It's the song they're all singing down Brummagem way.

Along came a boatman, the old boat to see,
Says he 'Here's a craft that is useful to me.
I'll load her with coal and for London I'll steer',
Said the boatman to the owner, 'If I take her from here'.

The owner said 'Yes' and the boatman 'Okay'
And into the cabin he went straightaway.
He lit up the stove, cleaned cobwebs and mould,
And polished the beam 'til it shone like fine gold.

He sang as he laboured far into the night,
Got up in the morning before it was light.
He put the rusty blowlamp on the cylinder head,
'Tis a fine day for boating', the old boatman said.

He primed up the engine, a prayer in his heart,
And kicked on the flywheel to see if she'd start;
With a bang like the sound of a ten-pounder gun
The aged old Bolinder started to run.

He cast off the fore-end and at the counter he stood,
As the Rosemary shook herself free of the mud.
With tears in his eyes says the boatman 'We may
Get right down to Coventry 'fore the end of the day.'

On dark stormy nights round the fall of the year,
If the beat of a Bolinder distant you hear,
It not Clayton's Sour, Youmea or the Tay;
It's the ghost of the boatman and the old Rosemary.

to London I'll steer: he would have done so along the Grand Union Canal.

Bolinder: the Swedish Bolinder engine was a single-cylinder diesel, with an characteristic 'tunk-tunk-tunk' exhaust note. The cylinder was primed with oil, a boss on the cylinder then being heated to vaporise the oil. The flywheel was spun, and the engine would then (hopefully) start. Bolinders were widespread on the English canal system.