Darling mother would you guide my hand
My love she's in America with a terry band
Her dark-flowing hair rolls all down her breast
It's as soft as the night that she went and left
Sandy was the river that she walked
It was out the door and it was off the dock,
The thunder ahead and the steamboat's dreams
Of lily-white smoke and fine rafting things.
She boarded that ship and she sent it well
Fast and lonesome as a kind farewell
I asked her grace for twelve little towns
With a market in all and open fields around
She took the East, and she took the West
Elizabeth's the girl that I love the best
My house was robbed when I shut the door
And boarded it up with a rusted oar.
Bring me a rose, St. Therese, St. Therese
Would you bring me a rose St. Therese
All the little flowers are covered and blessed
Would you bring me a rose St. Therese.
I saw her at the market just yesterday
I said hello but she looked the other way
She wore a coat of black and two old shoes
And my eyes were light with the devil's dues
I gave her a whistle and three hundred cries
And there I found a rose as white as lye
You can wash with water every day
But that dirt will stain your hide in the same old way.
Now two little devils danced on a barrel of lime
You know they're devils, mama, but you took a bad time
It was a slipped-up jig with iron feet
That fled like a coward when lovers meet
But there in the garden I can see you fine
Your hand full of roses smell better than wine
To scatter your flowers for the one you love
As tender as the lightning in the sky above.
Bring me a rose St. Therese, St. Therese
Would you bring me a rose St. Therese
All the little flowers are covered and blessed
Would you bring me that rose St. Therese