Saint Therese

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