Blue-eyed Boy: Julia Rickman (MO) 1909 Belden A
[From Belden; "Ballads and Songs," 1940. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
The Blue-Eyed Boy
Here divers images or motifs seem to have been gathered around a refrain stanza which gives the name to the song. I have found. it reported from else-where only in Nebraska (ABS 272-3). In A the refrain stanza is not marked as such and the other elements are the hand and lips image (vaguely remembered from The Lass of Roch Royal), the turtle dove, the green willow tree, and 'Must I go bound while he goes free?';[1] in B, the lover going to sea, the value of a true friend., the little bird, and the refrain stanza; in C, the harp hung on the willow tree (which here has thrust the 'blue-eyed boy' stanza from its place as refrain),'Must I go bound and you go free?', the value of a true friend, and the turtle dove. D lacks the 'blue-eyed boy' altogether, but I have included it here because of the 'Must I go bound' stanza; the other stanza belongs to the tradition of 'There is an Alehouse in Yonder Town,' for which see the headnote to The Butcher Boy.
'Blue-eyed Boy.' Secured in 1909 by Miss Hamilton from Julia Rickman of the West Plains High School.
Oh, who, oh, who will be my friend,
Oh, who will take my lily-white hand,
Oh, who will kiss my ruby lips
When I go in a foreign land?
My father, he will be my friend,
My sister take my lily-white hand.,
Some stranger kiss my ruby lips
When I go in a foreign land.
Oh, bring me back my blue-eyed boy,
Oh, bring my darling back to me,
Oh, bring me back the one I love
And happy will I ever be.
If I had the wings of a turtle dove
I would fly away to the one I love,
I would fly to the one I love so dear,
And talk to him 'while she is near.
I have not the wings of a turtle dove,
I cannot fly to the one I love;
But the loss of one is the gain of two,
And this is why I mourn for you.
Must I go bound while he goes free?
Must I love a fellow when he don't love me ?
Or must I act the childish part
And love a fellow when he broke my heart?
Adieu, adieu, kind friends, adieu,
I can no longer stay with you.
I'll hang myself on a green willow tree
Unless he consents to marry me.
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1. Known also in Dorsetshire (JFSS VII 69), Virginia (TBV 269-70, SCSM 284-5 319), and North Carolina (BMFSB 50-1, SCSM 288 288). It goes back at least to the seventeenth century; see Ronburghe Ballads YII 104-5.