make up a cheery sounding tune, it's probably right. also it's pronounced "ma-rye-ah"
O the old Sleigher Maria
Who used to roam the river
Painted bright with birds and flowers and moons
When the drownies sang their funeral songs
She hummed to keep them company
And to let her longarms know she'd be home soon.
O the old Sleigher Maria
Who used to roam the river
Was a fat old lady, and you'd know it too!
She creaked and groaned wherever she roamed
To let them know she's going
And sang and shouted all day to her crew.
O the old Sleigher Maria
Who used to roam the river
Was the Host's own handmaid to her rivermen
She glided high, with gunwales dry
To ease her oarsmen's burden
Yearmeet to Green Lake, then back down again.
O the old Sleigher Maria
Who used to roam the river
Saw ships of steel and rivets join her there
Their oars like little millipedes' legs
A hundred feet of iron!
Didn't see the drownies, or they didn't care.
O the old Sleigher Maria
Who used to roam the river
Came into port and didn't know her home
The longarm booms that towered and loomed
Like cranes a-going fishing
For a little frog who only longed to roam.
O the old Sleigher Maria
Who used to roam the river
Is gone now, but the drownies sing the same key
On the day they hauled her off the docks
The drownies stole her back for
Her funeral procession to the sea.
For the period when the Slr Maria was actually on the river, 'longarm' is inaccurate slang because loading cranes had yet to be invented, but when the song was written in the 40s it was already so ubiquitous that no-one questioned using 'longarm' rather than the more period-appropriate 'porter.'