[Inspired by Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman. The tune was vaguely inspired by Steeleye Span’s You Will Burn]

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

I rode to the tavern where my true love did dwell
I asked for her favour and she answered right well
I gave her my hand and she gave me her heart
But soon fell the dark of night and I had to depart

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

I rode for a night and I rode for a day
I robbed a fine coach on the King’s highway
I took from the lady her diamonds and gold
For the use of my own true love who had made me so bold

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

I rode through the night with the jewels at my side
My own well-known features with a mask I did hide
For the soldiers were out for the man who’d been seen
A-robbing of the royal coach and the person of the Queen

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

In darkness I rode to the tavern’s front door
To call out her name as I did so before
But ere I could utter a word of my own
There came then a sudden sound which chilled me to the bone

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

A shot from a musket rang out through the night
I turned and I fled ’til the pale morning light
I thought myself sold and most foully betrayed
Not knowing my own true love her life for mine had paid

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

From men passing by then I heard of a tale
I shuddered to hear it and I grew faint and pale
I heard how my love had been captured and tied
With her hands bound in front of her and a musket at her side

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

I heard how they found her with her head bending low
A hole in her breast and her face white as snow
I cursed then the day I had thought her untrue
I knew then my own true love had proved truer than I knew

My love she is beautiful, my love she is fair
With a blood red ribbon in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she is famed throughout the land

I rode up the highway as dawn broke the sky
I rode up the highway and there did I die
Though she warned me away with her last dying breath
She gave to me her priceless life and I gave to her my death

My love she was beautiful, my love she was fair
With her hot blood drying in her coal black hair
So graceful her neck and so slender her hand
My love she was famed throughout the land

Copyright © 2018 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.