Pretty Polly- Douglas MS (NY) c.1845 Thompson
[Fragment from A Pioneer Songster- Texts from Stevens-Douglass MS 1841-1856 by Thompson- 1958. I've guesstimated the date as 1845. Original spelling in the MS kept.
Thompson's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
25. Pretty Polly
The English song known as "Polly's Love; or, The Cruel Ship Carpenter," according to Cox, is condensed from a long eighteenth-century broadside, "The Gosport Tragedy; or, The Perjured Ship Carpenter." The Harvard Library has an American broadside of about 1820. Scarborough prints five tunes; Mackenzie, one.
The story begun in the Douglass version may be completed by comparison with other versions. In Scarborough (C) the man proposed marriage, but Polly refused because she was too young. After the murder he went on shipboard; the ship sank, and he saw a vision of Polly and a child, warning him of the debt he must pay the devil. In Cox (A) he died raving mad; in (C) a sailor stepped on the grave, and a woman with a child in her arms appeared, a sign that the ship would be unlucky. In "Polly's Love," referred to by Cox, William was torn to pieces by the girl's ghost. A long, detailed version (23 stanzas) appears in Mackenzie.
The texts vary. Brown presents four versions, of which (A) and (B) are much alike and much longer than Douglass. The verses given in Douglass, however, have lines quite similar to a section of Brown (A), beginning with Brown's stanza n. Scarborough (C) is fairly close to Douglass. Scarborough (A) and Cox (A) repeat the first line of each stanza; Scarborough (B) has no dialogue; Scarborough (D), (E), and (F) are so modernized that the man kills the girl with a revolver instead of a sword.
Pretty Polly
1. Come Polly come Polly come go along with me
Before we are married some friends for to see
He led her ore hills ore valleys so deep
At last pretty Polly sat down for to weep
2. O Billy O Billy you have led me a stray
On purpos my innocent life for to stay
Polly O Polly O that is what I have
I was all the last night a digging of your grave
3 . She went a little farther as she did spy
A grave being dug and a spade standing by
Her lilly white hand in sorrow she rung
Begging for mercy cries what have I done
4. In an instant he drew a bright sword in his hand
. . . .