No. 2 Beggar or to Begging I Will Go, Soc 212
Heptatonic ionian, mode 3 A + b (I II III IV V VI VII)
I’d rather live a beggar while here on earth I stay,
Than to possess the riches of all America;
And to begging I will go.
And to begging I will go, will go, will go,
And to begging I will go.
With thoughts of keen emotion our hearts are running o’er,
While parting from the friends we love for China’s distant shore,
We’re off for China’s shore.
We’re off for China’s shore, China’s shore,
We’re off for China’s shore.
We need your prayers, your sympathies more now than e’er before,
For few the friends and hard the task on China’s distant shore;
We’re off for China’s shore.
We’re off etc.
We’ll heed our Master’s call; He is with us ever more;
Then farewell, dear friends, adieu, we’re off for China’s shore;
We’re off for China’s shore.
We’re off etc.
A close tune variant is ‘Lost City’, or ‘To Glory I Will Go’ in this collection. Tune and words are a parody of ‘A-Begging We Will Go’ which was widely popular in the latter part of the seventeenth century and traces of whose existence are found as early as 1611.
See Chappell’s Old English Popular Music, ii., 42-43.
The first stanza of the song as it appeared in Choyce Ayres etc., 1676, runs:
There was a jovial beggar,
He had a wooden leg,
Lame from his cradle and forced for to beg.
And a begging we will go, we’ll go, we’ll go,
And a begging we will go.
Other songs for which the early song became the prototype were ‘A Bowling We Will Go’, ‘A Fishing We Will Go’, ‘A Hawking We Will Go’ and ‘A Hunting We Will Go.’