XV Soldier Songs
Of soldier songs the folk-singer has comparatively few. One of the prettiest is that indifferently called “The Summer Morning,” or “The White Cockade.” It commences—
“It was one Monday morning, as I came o’er the moss,
I had no thought of listing till the soldiers did me cross;
They kindly did invite me to a flowing bowl, and down
They advancèd me some money, ten guineas and a crown.
’Tis true my love has ’listed; he wears a white cockade;
He is a handsome, tall young man, besides a roving blade;
He is a handsome young man, and he’s gone to serve the King.
Oh! my very heart is breaking all for the love of him!”
Another soldier’s song popular among folk-singers is “Pretty Polly Oliver,” or “Polly Oliver’s Ramble.”
“One night Polly Oliver lay musing in bed;
A comical fancy came into her head,
Neither father nor mother shall make me false prove,
I’ll ’list for a soldier and follow my love.”
Polly dresses herself in male attire, mounts her father’s black gelding, and joins the regiment, with the captain of which she is in love.
Then we have the pathetic “Deserter.”
“When first I deserted I thought myself free
Until my false comrade informed on me.”
Another favourite is “The Gentleman Soldier,” and yet another, “The bonny Scotch lad with his bonnet so blue.” The battle of Waterloo gave rise to several long ballads descriptive of the fight, and these in their full integrity of twenty or thirty verses used, not long ago, to be remembered by old soldiers.