The Proud Girl

[Verse]
As she was walking, a girl alone
All through the flowery wood
She heard the sound of a bridle reins;
And hoped that it might be for good

“Come down, come down, you fine young man
You're welcome home to me
To my soft bed and the charcoal red
And the candles burning free.”

“Oh I can't come down and I won't come down
Nor I come into your arms at all
For a finer girl than ten of you
I'm meeting below the town wall.”

She says, "a finer girl than ten of me
I wonder now who that may be?
For I'm sure no finer girl than me
Your eyes did ever see.”

Well he leaned himself across his saddle bow
For a kiss before they'd part
And with her knife, so long and keen
She stabbed him through the heart

Saying, “Lie there, lie there, you false young man
Til' the flesh seep from off your bones
And that finer girl than ten of me
Can weary a-waiting alone.”

And as she walked alone, the high highway
She saw a bird up on the tree
Says, “Oh how could you kill that fine young man
As he was a-kissing of thee?”

“Come down, come down, you pretty little bird
And eat the bread from out of me hand
And your cage be of the wiry gold
Instead of the weight alone”

“I won't come down and I can't come down
Nor come close to your knee
For as you'd done to that fine young man
I'm sure you would do to me.”

She says, "Oh, if I had my bended bow
My arrow at my knee
I'd loose a dart that would pierce your heart
As you sit chatterin' on that tree.”

“Ah, but you've not got your bow, lady
Nor your arrow by your knee
So I'll fly away to that young man's home
And tell what I did see.”

And as she crossed her house threshold
This girl gave a pitiful moan
And she has walled that young man up
Behind a marble-stone

And she had kept that young man man
For full three-quarter of a year
Till the heavy smell of death did spread
And she began to fear

And she called unto her Irish maid
And the girl's hair stood to hear her say:
“There is a young man in my room
And it's time he was away.”

So the one she took him by the shoulders
And the other one by the feet
And they've plunged him in the river clear
That runs about fifteen foot deep

"Oh, look away," says the Irish maid
"Oh, look away into the South!"
You little thought to see that blue corpse
When you've two tongues in your mouth

Then up and speaks that pretty little bird
A-seated on his tree
"I'll have you dive, you dive us all
For here he does lie indeed.”

“But I'll have you quit your day diving
And dive all through the night
For under the water where that young man lies
The candles they burn so bright.”

So the divers quit their day diving
And they dived all through the night
And under the water where that young man lay
They saw them candles burning bright

And two men went into the wood
To cut both briar and thorn
And they have built a great bonfire
This proud girl for to burn

And the fire took fast upon her cheek
And the fire took fast upon her chin
And it sung in the points of her yellow hair
She burned like the holly green