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Once I had a sweetheart but now he is gone,
He's gone and he's left me, I'm here all alone,
And since he has left me contented I must be,
I know he loves someone far better than me.
Green grows the laurel and soft falls the dew,
How sad was my heart when I parted from you,
And in our next meeting I hope you'll prove true,
Never change the green laurel for the red, white, and blue.
I wrote him a letter so loving and kind,
He wrote me another with sharp, bitter lines,
Saying: "Keep your love letters and I will keep mine,
And you write to your love and I'll write to mine."
So green grows the laurel and soft falls the dew,
How sad was my heart when I parted from you,
And in our next meeting I'll have you to know
Young men are deceivers wherever they go.
He passed by my window both early and late,
And the looks that he gave me would make your heart ache,
The looks that he gave me ten thousand would kill,
Wherever he wanders he's my sweetheart still.
So green grows the laurel and soft falls the dew,
How sad was my heart when I parted from you,
And in our next meeting I hope you'll prove true,
Never change the green laurel for the red, white, and blue.
Once I was happy as a red blushing rose,
Bt now I'm as pale as the lily that grows,
Like a tree in the garden with its beauty all gone,
Don't you see what I've come to for the loving of one?
So green grows the laurel and soft falls the dew,
How sad was my heart when I parted from you,
And in our next meeting I hope you'll prove true,
I will change my green laurel for the red, white, and blue.
Collected in 1959 from Mrs. Clara Stevens of Bellburns, NL, by Ken Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, p.454, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved. A variant was also collected from Mike Kent (b.1904) of Cape Broyle, NL, and published as Nightingale Laurels in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA). A variant in which the singer is a man was also published n 1935 in the novel Little House On The Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
