Standard (EADGBE)
By the margin of the ocean,
One pleasant evening in the month of June,
When all those feathered songsters
Their pleasant notes did sweetly tune,
'Twas there I spied a female
Who seemed to be in grief or woe,
Conversing with young Bonaparte
Concerning the Bonnie Bunch of Roses-O.
Then up spake young Napoleon
And took his mother by the hand,
Saying, "Mother dear, be patient
Until I'm able to take command.
I'll build a mighty army
And through tremendous danger go.
And I never will return again
Till I've conquered the Bonnie Bunch of Roses-O.
"When first you saw great Bonaparte,
You knelt upon your bended knee
And asked your father's life of him
And he granted it most mournfully.
'Twas then he took his army
And o'er the frozen Alps did go;
Saying, "I never will return again
Until I've conquered the Bonnie Bunch of Roses-O.
"He took ten hundred thousand men
And kings likewise for to bear his train.
He was so well provided for
That he could sweep the world for gain.
But when he came to Moscow
He was o'erpowered by sleet and snow
And with Moscow all a-blazing,
He lost the Bonnie Bunch of Roses-O."
"O, son, be not too venturesome,
For England has a heart of oak,
And England, Ireland, and Scotland,
Their unity has never been broke.
Remember your dear father;
In Saint Helena his body it lies low,
And if ever you follow after,
Beware of the Bonnie Bunch of Roses-O."
"O mother, dearest mother,
Now I lie on my dying bed.
If I lived I might have been clever,
But now I rest my youthful head.
And when our bones lie mouldering
And weeping willows o'er us do grow,
The deeds of brave Napoleon
Shall conquer the Bonnie Bunch of Roses-O."