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A lady fair was walking down by a riverside,
The crystal tears fell from her cheeks as I did pass her by;
I saw her heaving bosom as up to me she drew,
"My friend, I hear my Willie dear is slain at Waterloo,"
"What sort of clothes did your Willie wear?" the soldier made reply.
"He wore a highland bonnet with a feather standing high;
A glittering sword hung by his side over his dark suit of blue,
Those were the clothes my Willie wore on lonely Waterloo."
"If that's the clothes your Willie wore I saw his dying day,
Five bayonets pierced his tender heart before he down did lay;
He took me by the hand and said some Frenchman did him slew,
It was I who closed your Willie's eyes on lonely Waterloo."
"Oh, Willie, dearest Willie!" and she could say no more,
She fell into the soldier's arms those dreadful tidings bore;
"May the jaws of heaven open and swallow me down through,
Since my Willie lies a mouldering corpse on lonely Waterloo.
"If I had some eagle's wings I would surmount on high,
I would fly to lonely Waterloo where my true love do lie;
I would light upon his bosom my love for to renew,
I would kiss my darling's pale cold lips on lonely Waterloo."
Collected in 1952 from Mrs. John Fogarty of Joe Batt's Arm, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.1007-1008, by The National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved, and recorded on the album Songs And Ballads of Newfoundland, Folkways FG 3505, LP (1956) Cut #B.04.
A variant was also sung by Mrs. Mary Dunphy [b.1906] of Tors Cove, NL, and published as Waterloo in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
MacEdward Leach also collected a variant published as #127, Lonely Waterloo, in Folk Ballads And Songs Of The Lower Labrador Coast by the National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, 1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
A variant was collected in 1978 from Pius Power, Sr. of Southeast Bight, NL, by Genevieve Lehr and Anita Best and published as #67, Lonely Waterloo in Come And I Will Sing You: A Newfoundland Songbook, pp.117-118, edited by Genevieve Lehr (University of Toronto Press © 1985/2003).
Genevieve Lehr noted that Mr. Power described this as a heave-up shanty that he learned from Doug Haynes of Prowston, NL.
