This is #18 from Love Is Pleasing: songs of courtship and marriage, selected and edited by Roy Palmer (Cambridge University Press, 1974)

THE YOUNG TROOPER CUT DOWN IN HIS PRIME

As I was a-walking down by the infirm'ry
As I was a-walking one morning of late,
Who should I spy but my own dear comrade.
Bitterly weeping, so hard was his fate.

I boldly stepped up to him and I did ask him,
'Oh why are you wrapped up in flannel so white?'
'My body is injured and sadly disordered,
All by a young woman, my own heart's delight.

'Now had she but told me when she did disorder me,
Had she but told me the truth in good time,
I might have got pills and some salts of white mercury
Now I'm cut down in the height of my prime.

'Get six jolly fellows to carry my coffin,
And six pretty maidens to carry my pall;
Give to each of them fine bunches of roses,
That they may not smell me as they go along.

'And over my coffin put handfuls of lavender,
Handfuls of lavender on every side;
Bunches of roses all over my coffin —
For there's a young trooper cut down in his prime.

'Then beat the drums slowly and play the pipes merrily,
Play the dead march as you carry me along;
Fire off your guns right over my coffin —
There goes a young trooper cut down in his prime.'


The theme of a young man dying from syphilis would not appear at first sight to be an ideal subject for song. Yet this lament, which probably originated in the eighteenth century, has been found all over the British Isles and America. The hero is a soldier or a sailor in Britain, but a cowboy or a gambler in America. There are even versions in which the hero becomes a heroine, and the song deals with a young girl cut down in her prime. It is not usual for the tertiary and fatal stage of syphilis to be reached by a young person, but this can happen. The disease was treated with mercury until as recently as 1909. Antibiotics are now used, but there has been growing concern at the increased incidence of venereal diseases among the young in recent years.

The last verse is sometimes sung as a chorus.


Text adapted from John Masefield, A Sailor's Garland, 1906, page 348. Melody learned by Palmer in English folk clubs.

---

Click to play (joeweb)