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As I went a-roving out one morning in May,
To view those green fields and the meadow so gay,
'Twas there I a-spied oh a neat little queen,
She was spreading her clothes on the bridge at Tralee.
As I stepped up to her with tears in my eyes,
Saying, "You are the fairest that ever I spied.
And 'tis six months or better since I planned in my mind,
That we would get married if you were inclined."
"Oh, get married?" she says, "Oh, my age is too young.
Besides, all those young men they got flattering tongues.
My dada and mama would be angry with me,
If I'd marry a rover or a lover like thee."
Oh, the laddie got up, he was walking away,
"Come back, bonny laddie," those words she did say.
"Oh the sky do look cloudy. I think we'll have rain."
They shook hands and they parted on the bridge at Tralee.
Collected in 1951 from Mr. M. Curran (b.1890) of Calvert, NL, and published in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA). A variant was also collected in 1959 from Nicholas Keough of Parson's Pond NL, by Ken Peacock and published as The Beach Of Strablane in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 2, pp.499-500, by The National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved. And a longer variant was collected from Mrs. McCarthy of Renews, NL, and published as Beaches So Green in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
