IN JERSEY TOWN.
In Jersey town, where I do dwell,
A butcher boy I love so well,
He's courted me my heart away,
And now with me he will not stay.
There is a name in this same town,
Where my true love goes and sets himself down;
He'll take a strange girl on his knee,
And tell to her what he won't to me.
O grief, O grief, I'll tell you why,
Because she's got more gold than I:
Her gold will melt, her soul will fly,
In need of time she'll be poor as I.
She went upstairs to make her bed,
And not one word to her mother said,
Her mother, she came up the stair,
Cries, "What's the matter, my daughter, dear?"
"Mother, mother, you do not know
The grief and wound my heart is in.
Go, bring a chair, and set me down,
A pen and ink to write it down."
On every line she dropped a tear,
In calling home her Willie, dear.
When her father he came home,
Says, "Where's my dearest daughter gone?"
Up the stairs he broke the door,
And there he found her on a rope.
He took his knife, and he cut her down,
And in her bosom these lines were found.
Go dig her grave both deep and wide,
A marble stone at both head and foot,
A turtle dove all on her breast,
To show she hung herself for love.
FALSE GIRL.
Fare you well, false girl,
I must leave you in sorrow and in pain:
My heart aches and cannot grieve you
When you bear a stranger's name.
