"A Brisk Young Sailor (Courted Me)" (variously known as "Bold Young Farmer", "The Alehouse", "Died For Love" and "I Wish My Baby Was Born" amongst other titles) is a traditional folk ballad (Roud # 60, Laws P25), which has been collected from all over Britain, Ireland and North America.
In some versions, she dies of a broken heart and in others, he is not a sailor but a farmer or other unspecified young man.
For example, "John Riley" (Roud #264/Laws N42) sometimes also goes by the same title[5] but tells of a sailor returning to his lover after seven years to heal a broken tryst.
Ah, griev'd I am, I'll tell you why, Because she has more gold than I, Her gold will waste, her beauty blast, Poor girl she'll come like me at last, I wish my baby it was born, Set smiling on its father's knee, And I was dead and in my grave, And green grass growing over me.
But when they found her corpse was cold, They went to her false love and told, I am glad says he, she has done so well, I long to hear her funeral knell, In Abraham's bosom she does sleep, While his tormenting soul must weep, He often wished his time o'er again, That his bride he might make her merry & marry her soon.