Brisk Young Sailor- Starlina Lovell (Wales) Groome 1881
[From In Gipsy Tents by Francis Hindes Groome; also in The Gipsies: Reminiscences and Social Life of this Extraordinary Race ... by Francis Hindes Groome 1881. Excerpt from book given below.
R. Matteson 2017]
For knowing the Lovells' repertory, I could pick and choose at will, so next demanded of Ruth that plaint of a forsaken one, each verse of which concludes, "As an orange grows on an apple-tree;" and then of Starlina the following homely ditty:—
[Brisk Young Sailor- sung by Starlina Lovell, gypsy, in Wales area. Collected by Groome, published 1881.]
"' A brisk young sailor come courting me,
He stole away my sweet liberty;
My heart he stole with a free good will,
He's got it now, and he'll keep it still.
"'There is an alehouse in yonders town,
Where my first lovier is sitting down,
And he takes another lass on his knee;
Oh! don't you think it's a grief to me?
"'A grief to me, and I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I;
But her gold will flash, and her beauty pass,
And she'll become like me at last.'
"Her father came home, it was late one night,
Inquiring for his heart's delight;
Upstairs he went, and the door he broke,
And found her hanging by a rope.
"He took his knife, and he cut her down,
And in her bosom this note he found,
And on the note these few lines was wrote,—
'O Johnny, O Johnny, my heart you have broke.'
"'Come dig me a grave both wide and deep,
And marble stone from head to feet,
And on the top then a turtle-dove,
To show the world that I died for love.'"
Silly words enough, but the buzzing, quavering tune calls up a vision of alehouse and smock-frocked drinkers, oak settle and mugs of cider, better at least than the glare and din of music halls.