Butcher's Boy- Buell Bush (WV) c.1971 Bush II
[From Michael E. "Jim" Bush's Folk Song of Central West Virginia, volume II, c. 1972.
R. Matteson 2017]
"The Butcher's Boy." Sung by Mrs Buell Bush of Cox's Mill, WV c.1971 Learned from her grandmother Mary Brown, who emigrated from England in 1877 at the age of seventeen.
In London City, where I did dwell,
Was a butcher's boy I loved so well.
He courted me my life away,
And with me then he would not stay.
There is a strange house in this town,
Where he goes up, sets right down;
He takes another girl on his knee,
And tells her things he don't tell me.
I have to grieve, I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I;
Her gold will melt, and her silver fly,
Some day she'll be as poor as I.
She went upstairs to go to bed,
And nothing to my mother said;
"Oh mother dear" she seemed to say,
"What is the matter my daughter dear?"
"Oh, mother dear, you need not know
The pain and sorrow, the grief that flow,
Give me a chair and set me down,
With pen and ink to write words down."
And when her father first came home,
"Where is my daughter, where has she gone?"
He went upstairs and the door he broke,
He found her hanging by a rope.
He took his knife and cut her down,
And on her bosom these words he found:
"A foolish girl I am, you know,
To hang myself for a butcher's boy.
"Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
Place a marble slab at my head and feet,
And on my grave place a snow-white dove,
To show to the world I died for love."
"Must I go bound while he goes free?
Must I love a boy that don't love me?
Alas, alas! That will never be,
Till oranges grow on apple trees."