And here's an odd version (without Peggy, though lines are evidently missing from stanza 1) collected in the 1930s from woodsman John Nichols, 84 years old, of Stratford, N.Y. (From Harold W. Thompson, "Body, Boots & Britches"):

I'm deep in love, my mind is troubled,
I know not where to wander to
Since my own true love has turned from me.
Come sit you down by the side of me
And tell to me the very reason
Why I've been slighted so by she.

Now you have asked a leading question,
I will answer this reply:
If you expect a fair young lady,
You must lay your whiskey by.

If I must leave off all my drinkin'
And settle down in married life,
I'll bid adieu to all fair maidens
And I'll never take a wife.

I'll lay my head on a cask of brandy,
It's my fancy, I do declare;
But while I'm drinkin', I'm always thinkin'
How I might gain some lady fair.

The oceans're wide, I cannot wade them,
Nor neither had I wings to fly,
But must I hire some jolly boatswain
To ferry o'er my love and I.

I wish my love was a bunch of roses
Planted down by yonder fall,   ["wall"?]
And that I myself was a pretty dewdrop,
That on her bosom I might fall.

I wish I was in Cold Castle's garden,
Where the marble stones are as black as ink,
And all those pretty girls adore me--
I'll sing no more until I drink.

Regrettably, Thompson does not print the melody.

"Cold Castle's garden" conceivably was once "old Castle Garden," the site of the State of New York Emigrant's [sic] Landing and Depot from 1855 to 1890. It was supplanted as an immigration center by Ellis Island, under Federal administration, in 1892.