Where Are You Going? Jim Cox (Glou) c.1870 Carpenter
[My abbreviated title. From the James Madison Carpenter Collection, this is a traditional version of the standard "Seventeen" broadside revision published many times from c. 1840.
R. Matteson 2018]
Where Are You Going My Pretty Maid? Sung by Jim Cox, 82 of Hampton Fields, Minchinhampton, Stroud, Gloucestershire 1870, Collected Carpenter, learned when Cox was a boy at home.
As I walked out one May morning,
One May morning so early,
I overtook a handsome maid,
Just as the sun was rising,
With my rummie, dummie, day.
Her stockings white, her shoes shone bright,
And the buckles shone like silver,
She had a dark and a rolling eye,
And her hair hung 'round her shoulder.
Where are you going my pretty maid,
Where are you going my honey?
Right cheerfully she answered me,
On an errand for my mammy.
How old are you my pretty fair maid,
How old are you my honey?
Right cheerfully she answered me,
I'm seventeen come Sunday.
Will you take a man my pretty fair maid,
Will you take a man my honey?
Right cheerfully she answered me,
I dare not for my mammy.
If you come to my mammy's house,
When the moon shines bright and clearly,
I will come down and let you in,
And my mammy shall not hear me.
I went down to her mammy's house,
When the moon was bright was shiny,
She came down and let me in,
And I lay on her arm till morning.
Now soldier will you marry me?
It's now's your time or never,
For if you do not marry me,
I am undone for ever.
Now I am with my husband dear,
Where the wars they are alarming[1],
A drum and fife are my delight,
And a merry man in the morning.
1. MS: About where we were arming