Died for Love - James Brown (Hamp) 1906 Gardiner Roud 60
[George Gardiner Manuscript Collection (GG/1/9/508). It starts with the Brisk Young Sailor ad floating core stanzas and has the suicide- not found usually found in Brisk Young Sailor.
R. Matteson 2017]
Died for Love- sung by James Brown of Basingstoke, Hampshire in 1906. Collected by G.B. Gardiner and Charles Gamblin.
'Twas of a sailor that courted me,
He gained my heart and liberty,
He gained it all with a free good will,
For all he's not her I love him still.
There is an alehouse in yonder town,
Where my love goes and sits himself down;
And he pulls a strange lass on his knee
And don't you think that's a grief to me.
A grief to me and I'll tell you why,
Because she have got more gold than I,
The gold will melt and her beauty decay,
Poor girl like me she'll soon faint away.
But it's now my apron strings is tied low,
My true love follows me through frost and snow;
But now my belly's up to my chin,
He passes by and he says nothing.
I wish to the Lord my babe was born
And smilin' on his own daddy's knee
Poor girl like me wrapt in cold clay,
With the green grass growing all over me.
He came in one night for his heart's delight,
He run upstairs and the door he broke,
He run upstairs and the door he broke,
And he seen his love hanging by a rope.
He took a knife and he cut her down,
And in her bosom a note he found,
Come dig my grave both long, wide and deep,
A marble stone at my head and feet
On my tombstone two turtle doves
That the world might see I died for love.