Worcester Tragedy- Charlotte Decker (NL) 1959 Peacock C
[Published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, pp.638-639, by the National Museum of Canada (1965).
Worchester is clearly a corruption of Wexford. This is one of several older version collected in the US and Canada, and this is the oldest extant traditional Wexford version.
R. Matteson 2016]
C. "The Worcester Tragedy." Collected by Kenneth Peacock in 1959 from Mrs Charlotte Decker [1884-1967] of Parson's Pond, NL.
My parents reared me tenderly
and good learning gave to me,
They bound me 'prentice to a miller
to which I did agree,
Till I fell in love with a pretty girl
with a dark and a rolling eye,
I told her I would marry her
if she would with me lie.
I courted her for six long months,
a little now and then,
How shamed I was to marry her
I was so young a man,
Till at length this fair girl proved
with child and unto me did cry,
Oh Jimmy dear, come marry me,
or else for you I'll die."
I rod' unto her sister's house
about eight o'clock that night,
But little did that poor girl think
I owed her any spite.
I askèd her to take a walk
down in the meadows gay,
And there we'd sit and talk awhile
and fix our wedding day.
In taking a stake of hewn ash
I fell her to the ground,
And soon the blood of innocence
came trinkling from her wounds.
Now with the blood of innocence
my hands and clothes are dyed,
Instead of being a breathless corpse
I wish she were my bride.
I rod' unto my master's house
about twelve o'clock that night,
My master he arose and for me
he struck a light.
He askèd me and he questioned me
what stained my hands and clothes,
And this to him I answered ready,
"It's the bleeding of my nose."
I callèd for a candle
to light myself to bed,
And knowing at that same time
my true love she lay dead.
And now with the blood of innocence
my hands and clothes are dyed,
Instead of being a breathless corpse
I wish she were my bride.
This cruelty is known by all,
for this pretty girl was found
A-floating by her brother's door
in fair Worcester town.
When I was taken prisoner
both judge and jury agreed
For murdering of my own true love
that hangèd I must be.