The Tow-Rope Girls by Cicely Fox Smith

This Cicely Fox Smith poem has already been sung in a few forms.

I had always assumed that the tow-rope girls was some crude euphemism, but in this case the poem is about the sailors imagining their loved ones (mother, sister, sweetheart) pulling them home by the ship's tow-rope.

Here is the poem:
https://allpoetry.com/The-Tow-Rope-Girls

This version by Kimber's Men is clearly derivative, but with different verses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anefSoSvR6Y

This version is closer to the poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQGNigAEy7E&t=94s

I have missed the first verse of this by accident:

Oh, a ship in the Tropics, a-foaming along,
With every stitch drawing, the Trade blowing strong,
The white caps around her all breaking in spray,
For the girls have got hold of her tow-rope today.

A Mudcat thread on the 'bone in her mouth' bit (also not a euphemism):
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=50319#763869