"Lovely on the Water" was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams from the singing of Mr Hilton at South Walsham on April 11, 1908 and published in the Journal of the Folk Song Society vol. 4 (1910). It was included in the Topic compilation of traditional songs of sailors, ships and the sea, Round Cape Horn. The sleeve notes commented:
'Lovely on the Water', with a gorgeous melody and significant words, has been found only once, by Vaughan Williams at South Walsham, a few miles from Norwich. The song starts idyllically and ends ominously, like a sunny day that clouds over. The singer, a Mr. Hilton, had fourteen verses, but Vaughan Williams, often a bit careless about texts, mislaid some. Missing verses probably concerned the familiar situation in which the girl volunteers to disguise herself as a seaman, in order to sail with her lover, but is hurriedly dissuaded.
The song seems to be the front end of the "broken token" situation where the sailor returns but is not recognized by his lover. It is also related to the "female sailor/soldier" motif songs.
Vaughan Williams included this melody in his Six Studies in English Folk Song.
Steeleye Span recorded "Lovely on the Water" in 1971 for their second album, Please to See the King. Other singers have recorded it but I have not heard any of those recordings.