This is the version that I learned in school in the 1950s....

As sweet Polly Oliver lay musing in bed,
A sudden stange fancy came into her head.
"Nor Father nor Mother shall make me false prove,
I'll go for a soldier and follow my love!"

So early next morning she softly arose,
And dressed herself up in her dead brother's clothes.
She cut her hair short, and she stained her face brown,
And went for a soldier to fair London town.

Then up spake the sergeant one day at his drill,
"Now who's good for nursing, a captain lies ill?"
So sweet Polly Oliver to nurse him she's gone,
And finds then her true love, all wasted and wan.

The first week the doctor kept shaking his head.
"No nursing, young fellow, can save him," he said.
But when Polly Oliver had nursed back his life,
He cried,"You have cherished him as if you were his wife!"

At that poor Polly, she burst into tears,
And told the good doctor her hopes and her fears.
Then, after some weeks had passed, 'for better or worst',
The captain, he married his pretty soldier nurse.


This song features in a 1930s Hollywood film set in Victorian times. A young soldier (played by an equally young David Niven, no less) comes across his future sweetheart singing it at the piano.

Regards,

Train Guard