WHERE HAVE YOU GONE

Where have you gone

Pretty Girl, Pretty Girl

Where have you gone

Now you’ve been away so long

Just taking a walk in the country air

Country air, Country air

Skipping along without a care

All the whole day long

 

Beware of that big bad world out there

Beware of what may be lurking almost any where

Under that bush, behind that tree

Or on some rock, you’ll scrape your knee

It’s time you were coming home to tea

Before the Sun goes down

 

No, not just now, I don’t wish to

Thank you, thank you, thank you

I’m strolling along with the wind in my hair

Strolling along in the Sun I declare

Just over that hill and then I shall repair

 

Oh! Look way down there

I can see the County Fair

Lots of pretty boys

So many of them there

Perhaps they’ll come along a courting me

If they come, then we’ll see

Surely one will come a courting me

How could that be so wrong

 

That’s what we were talking of

And warned, warned you, warned you

Why can’t you see that this will be so good for me

For one handsome lad has just walked on up to me

He’s doffing his cap and bending his knee

Oh, pretty girl you’ll be safe here with me

So pretty girl come along and you will see

For on that ride what fun will be

So much fun It will be

And then we’ll have a dance and shake a knee

Before the music’s done.

 

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, whatever have we done

For now I wake from dreams to find

A brand new day has begun

When there we were just sipping at our Summer wine

In the setting of the Sun

Yes, but you were sniggering

When the kissing first begun

Ah, but then you just fell into my arms

Oh, dear Lord, was I succumbing to your charms

I should have heard the Church bells ring aligning

For then it never would have begun

They should have all been loudly ringing

And sounding the alarm

 

No, No, No, Not so, for this was all meant to be

We bided all of the last night

In perfect harmony

So why is it now that you really have to go

For that is what I’d really like to know

 

Well now - How nice it is for all you boys to be

So damned debonair and calmly fancy free

How is it that you can say

That it’s all the same for me

For when a poor sheltered girl

What excuses can there be

Scorned by one and all in polite society

Should she be left to face the world

Bereft of Charity

Now you tell me how can I ever go back to my home

For when it is that I am found

I shall surely be disowned.

 

Oh, woe is me! What now shall come to be

Maybe to be banished, across the wide, wide sea

Shunned by my friends and family

Never more them to see

To live alone in abject misery

“Till all my days are done.

 

Alas pitiful me. It is so shameful

Shameful, shameful, shameful 

Oh, what now, is there ever to be done

When all of my life

Has only just begun

 

So pretty girl, why don’t you come and marry me

Under the bough of that spreading chestnut tree

Then we could raise a family

Our family, one, two, three

Then it would be right for the world to see

If you would marry me.

Rodd Sherwin


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