She went upstairs to make her bed
And not one word to her mother said
Her mother, she went up there, too
Saying, "daughter, oh daughter, what's troubling you?"

"Oh mother, oh mother, I cannot tell
For the railroad boy that I love so well
He's courted me my life away
And now at home he will not stay
There is a tavern in london town
Where the railroad boy, he sits him down
He takes a strange girl on his knee
And he tells her things that he once told me"

Her father, he came in from work
Saying "where's my daughter, she seems so hurt"
He went upstairs to give her hope
But he found her hanging for a rope
He took his knife and he cut her down
And on her bosom these words he found

"Oh, dig my grave both wide and deep
Place a marble slab at my head and feet
And on my coffin place a snow white dove
To show this world that I died for love".