According to Bert Lloyd the text came from J T Huxtable from Workington Cumberland. It appears in Robert Anderson's Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect (Wigton 1808). Lloyd also states in Come All Ye Bold Miners that he supplied the usual tune. Lloyd also omits the first four lines of your last verse:

For four long years I've followed him
Now I must live without him
For there's nothing left that I can do but weep and think about him
So break my heart and then it's o'er

These extra lines were added by Stephen Sedley in his book The Seeds of Love (Essex Music, 1967):

"Based on the version sung by Anne Briggs on the Topic LP The Iron Muse which in turn is closely based on the set supplied to A L Lloyd for inclusion in Come All Ye Bold Miners by J T Huxtable, a Workington collier. The final stanza has been collated with the mostly garbled text published by Robert Anderson in Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect (1808)."

[Oh dear! The now Lord Justice of Appeal failed to recognise that far from "garbled", this was the original!]

The folklorist Roy Palmer explains:

"It is clear that Lloyd's editorial approach was not merely to reproduce the material sent to him. Sometimes the changes made were small. . . but others were far-reaching. On Jimmy's Enlisted (or The Recruited Collier) Lloyd laconically notes: Text from J T Huxtable of Workington. A version of this ballad appears in R Anderson's Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect (1808). In fact, the original is entitled simply Jenny's Complaint and features not a miner who enlists but a ploughman. A third party, Nichol, talks to Jenny about the wars and Jemmy (as he is called) merely 'led' (carted) the coals which remind Jenny of him. Lloyd silently (and brilliantly) remade the song. Although one phrase, 'I'se leetin', sits uncomfortably in the new text, the adaptation has enjoyed considerable success to a tune also supplied by Lloyd to replace Nancy to the Greenwood Gane which Anderson prescribed."


Jenny's Complaint (the original poem)

O, Lass! I've fearfu' news to tell!
What thinks te's come owre Jemmy?
The sowdgers hev e'en pick'd him up
And sent him far, far frae me:
To Carel he set off wi' wheat;
Them ill reed-cwoated fellows
Suin wil'd him in, then meade him drunk--
He'd better geane to th'gallows

The varra seet o' his cockade
It set us a' a-cryin;
for me I fairly fainted tweyce,
Tou may think that was tryin:
My fadder wad ha'e paid the smart
And shew'd a gowden guinea
But lack-a-day! He'd kiss'd the buik,
and that'll e'en kill Jenny

When Nichol talks about the wars,
It's war than deeth to hear him;
I oft steal out, to hide my tears,
And cannot, cannot bear him;
For aye he jeybes, and cracks his jwokes,
and bids me nit forsake him;
A brigadier, or grandidier,
He says, they're sure to meake him.

If owre the stibble fields I gang
I think I see him ploughin,
And ev'ry bit o' bread I eat,
It seems o' Jemmy's sowin';
He led the varra cwoals we burn,
And when the fire I's leetin,
To think the peats were in his hands,
It sets my heart a beatin.

What can I de? I nought can de,
But whinge, and think about him;
For three lang years, he follow'd me
Now I mun live widout him!
Brek, heart, at yence, and then it's owre!
Life's nought widout yen's dearie!
I'll suin lig in my cauld, cauld grave,
For oh! Of life I'm weary!