My Bonny Boy- Mary O'Bryan (Cahir) 1890 Baring-Gould MS
[From: Sabine Baring-Gould Manuscript Collection online; sent in to Baring-Gould in 1890s.
R. Matteson 2016]
The Bonny Boy- an Irish version sung by Mary O'Bryan of Abbey View, Cahir, Tipperary, learned from an old lady in West Clare in August, 1890.
1. O father, dear father you do me cruel wrong,
You have married me to the bonny boy, and he's far too young,
His age is but sixteen and mine is twenty-one,
Oh the bonny boy is young, he is growing.
2. O daughter dear daughter I've done you no wrong,
Tho' I've married you to the bonny boy, his age is not too young,
For when I'm dead and in my grave he'll prove to you a man,
O the bonny boy is young, he is growing.
3. O father, dear father I'll tell you what will do,
We'll send him off to college for another year or two,
And we'll bind about his college cap a ribbon of the blue,
To let the maidens know he is married.
4. One day I was walking, down by the college wall,
There I saw twenty college lads all playing [a] round of ball,
And there I saw my own true love, the fairest of them all,
O the bonny boy is young, and is growing.
5. At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
At the age of seventeen he was the father of a son
At the age of eighteen o'er his grave the grass grew green,
Cruel death had put an end to his growing.
6. I'll weave my love shroud of the immortal brown,
And the while that I do weave it the tears will trickle down,
I will weep and I will wail till the day that I die,
And I'll rear his bonny boy, whilst he's growing.