Pat Reilly - Planxty

It bein' on a monday morning, it bein' our pay day

We met Sergeant Jenkins at our goin' away

He says to Pat Reilly «You are a handsome young man

Will you come to John Kelly’s where we will set a dram»

And while we sat there boozin' and drinkin' our dram

He says to Pat Reilly «You are a handsome young man

I’d have you take the bounty and come along with me

To the sweet County Longford, strange faces there you’ll see»

«Oh no kind sir, a soldier’s life with me would not agree

Nor neither would I bind myself down from my liberty

For I lived as happy as a prince, my mind does tell me so

So fare thee well, I’m just goin' down, my?

shatter for to thow?

«Oh are you in a hurry, are you goin' away?

Or won’t you stop and listen to these words I’m goin' to say

Perhaps now Pat Reilly, you might do something worse

Than to leave your native country and enlist in the Black Horse»

Oh it’s I took the bounty, the reckoning was paid

The ribbons were brought out, me boys, and into my cockade

It’s early the next morning we all were made to stand

Before our grand general with hats all in our hands

He says to Pat Reilly «You are a little too low

With some other regiment I fear you have to go»

«I may go where I will, I have no-one to mourn

For my mother is dead, me boys, and never will return»

It’s not in the morning that I sing this song

But it’s in the cold evening as I march alone

With me gun o’er my shoulder I bitterly do weep

When I think of my true love that now lies fast asleep

My blessing on my mother that reared me neat and clean

But bad luck to my father that made me serve the queen

Oh had he been an honest man and learned to me my trade

I would never have enlisted nor worn the cockade