When you grow up some day. From the music hall, 1891.
words and music by Leslie Stuart
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
1. Long ago an angel I knew
If ever a one was seen
She was a bonny sweet child of eight
And I was just eighteen
And every night she’d sit on my knee
Her arms ’round my neck and say
“I love you, I love you and when I grow big
Now promise to marry your May”
Chorus
“Sweetheart May! when you grow up one day
You may marry another and my love betray
But, I’ll wait for you and then we shall see
What you will do when I ask you to marry me”
2. I went, one day, to countries away
To lands oversea to tread
Trials and troubles of life I met
As years lay on my head
But every night I’d think of that child
Her smile and her young love-sigh
I longed just to see her grown up, sweet eighteen
My May of the days gone by
3. I came back again and I found her at last
To a beautiful woman grown
I asked her to think of those old happy days
But the mem’ry was mine alone
I stood there before her, I sang the old song
She could not recall it, I begged her to try
She said, “I forget you, besides we must part
Tomorrow I’m going to be married, good-bye”
Sung here by Fred Feild: