The Butcher Boy

Words & Music:

Traditional English

 

Em                                          G                Em

In yonder city, there did dwell a butcher's boy, I loved him well.

Em                                       G                 Em

He courted me my life away and then with me would no more stay.

 

She went upstairs to make her bed and not one word to her mother said.

Her mother she went upstairs, too, saying,

"Daughter, oh daughter, what troubles you?"

 

"Oh mother, oh mother, I cannot tell that butcher's boy I love so well

He courted me my life away and now at home he will not stay"

 

"There is a place in London town where that butcher's boy goes and sits down

He takes that strange girl on his knee and tells to her what he won't tell me"

 

Her father he came up from work saying,

"Where is my daughter?  She seems so hurt."

He went upstairs to give her hope and found her hanging from a rope

 

He took his knife and cut her down and in her bosom these words were found:

"Go dig my grave both wide and deep, place a marble slab at my head and feet.

And over my coffin, place a snow-white dove to warn the world that I died of love."