Bold Young Farmer- John Denny (Essex) 1904 V. Williams
[First stanza with music Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Volume 2, 1906; complete with piano acc. in Folk-songs of England, Volume 2, edited by Cecil James Sharp, 1908.
R. Matteson 2017]
A Bold Young Farmer- Sung by John Denny at Billercay Union, Essex on April 25, 1904. Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
A bold young farmer he courted me,
He gained my heart and my liberty,
He has gained my heart with a free good will,
And I must confess I love him still.
There is an inn, in this same town,
Where my love goes and sits him down,
And takes another girl on his knee,
He tells her what he doesn't tell me.
Its grief to me, I'll tell you for why,
Because she has more gold than I,
But in needy time her gold shall fly,
And she shall be as poor as I.
There is a bird on yonder tree,
They say it's blind and cannot see;
I wish it had been the same with me,
Before I joined his company.
Go dig my grave both long, wide and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet,
And in the middle a turtle dove,
To show the wide world I died for love.