The Butcher Boy

The Butcher Boy - The Clancy Brothers/Tommy Makem

In London City where I did dwell

A butcher boy I loved right well

He courted me

My life away

But now with me he will not stay

I wish I wish I wish in vain

I wish I was a maid again

A maid again I ne'er will be

'Til cherries grow on an apple tree

I wish my baby it was born

And smiling on it's daddy's knee

And me poor girl to be dead and gone

With the long green grass growing over me

She went upstairs to go to bed

And calling up her mother said

Give me a chair 'til I sit down

And a pen and ink 'til I write down

And at every line cried willie dear

At every word she dropped a tear

Oh what a foolish girl was I

To be led astray by a butcher boy

He went upstairs and the door he broke

He found her hanging from a rope

He took his knife and he cut her down

And in her pocket these words he found

Oh make my grave large wide and deep

Put a marble stone at my head and feet

And in the middle a turtle dove

That the world may know that I died for love