My Boy Willie- Anon (Dublin) 1939 O Lochlainn
[No informant named or specific place. From Irish street ballads by Colm O Lochlainn, editor, 1939. The first stanza is found in the broadside "Young lady's Lamentation" Yeats, 1909.
R. Matteson 2017]
My Boy Willie
1. The night was long and I can find no rest,
The thoughts of Willie runs in my breast
I'll search the green woods and valleys wide,
Still hoping my true love to find.
2. "Oh father father give me a boat
Out on the ocean I may float,
To watch the big boats as they pass by,
That I might inquire for my Sailor boy."
3. She was not long upon the deep,
When a man-o'-war vessel she chanced to meet,
Saying, "Captain, captain now tell me true
If my boy Willy is on board with you?"
4. "What sort of boy is your Willy dear,
Or what sort of a suit does your Willy wear?"
"He wears a suit of the royal blue
And you'll easy know him for his heart is true."
5. "Oh then your Willie boy, I'm sorry to say,
Has just been drowned the other day,
On yon green isle that we pass by,
Twas there we laid your poor sailor boy."
6. She wrung her hands and tore her hair,
And she sobbed and sighed in her despair,
And with every sob she let fall a tear
And every sigh was for her Willie dear.
7. Oh father make my grave both wide and deep
With a fine tombstone at my head and feet,
And in the middle a turtle dove,
That the world may know that I died of love."
8. Come all you sailors who sail along
And all you boatsmen who follow on,
From the cabin boy to the mainmast high,
Ye must mourn in black for my sailor boy.