Bonny Boy Is Young- (Cork) 1883 John Matthews
[From: Notes and Queries (London)- Ninth Series Vol. 1, page 469; 1898
Below is the query in Notes and Queries with a fragment remembered in Cork in 1883. Unfortunately no response appeared.
R. Matteson 2016]
"The Bonny Boy Is Young, But He's Growing."—In 1883 I spent summer in the parish of Schull, barony of West Carbery. co. Cork. There, amongst the younger and English-speaking generation, I frequently heard sung a quaint ballad, which I have ever since regretted not having taken down in writing. It was sung to a plaintive melody which I well remember ; but I never caught more than the following lines of the ballad itself:—
As I was a-walking down by the college wall,
I saw four-and-twenty college boys playing at the ball;
And he was there, my own love, the fairest of them
all For the bonny boy is young, but he's growing.[1]
In his college cap so fine let him wear the bunch of blue,
For to let the ladies know that he's married.
Can any one supply information as to this ballad? I am reminded of it by the first quatrain of the verses communicated by Miss Florence Peacock, ante, p. 277.
John Hobson Matthews. Town Hall, Cardiff.
1. This line was repeated at the end of each verse