Here are the words I collected:

1. 'Tis true my love's enlisted, he wears the white cockade.
He is both gay and handsome as any roving blade.
He's gone to be a soldier, the white cockade he wears,
While I am here awaiting in sorrow and despair.

2. "Leave off your grief and sorrow, likewise your doleful strain.
The white cockade adorns me as I march o'er the plain.
When I return, I'll marry by this cockade I'll swear.
Till then, my love, be patient and my departure bear."

3. "I bring to you sad tidings" the sergeant he did say.
"Your love was slain in battle, He sends you this today.
He handed her the plumage, bedraggled by his gore.
With his last kiss he sent it, the white cockade he wore."

4. She spoke no words and at her tears, they fell in salten flood,
And from the bedraggled plumage she washed the stains of blood.
"Oh mother, I am dying, and when I'm in my grave
Just pin it to my bosom, my lover's white cockade."

Nothing like John Highlandman. I seem to think I have seen this somewhere but I can't trace it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Tradsinger