Down in the willow garden
Where me and my love did stray
Was a while we sitting, we courted
My love to me did say
Willie my darling, oh Willie my dear
How can you take my life
How can you stop my fair young breast
With your long and your daggering knife
I had a bottle of poison wine
My true love did not know
Was there I poisoned that dear little girl
Down under the banks below
Stopped her with the dagger
And it was a bloody knife
When I threw her in the river
Which was a dreadful sign
My father Richie had told me
That money would set me free
If I would murder that dear little girl
Whose name was Rose Connelly
Well now he sits at his cabin door
Wiping his tear-dimmed eyes
And cussing that day that he ever did say
That darling young woman to die
My race is run, beneath the sun
Oh hell is waiting for me
I'm sorry I murder that dear little girl
Whose name was Rose Connelly
Well now I sit in my old jail cell
And out of my window can see
The spot where I murdered that dear little girl
In the shade of the willowed trail
Willie my darling, oh Willie my dear
How can you take my life
How can you stop my fair young breast
With your long and your daggering knife