A popular song from 1866
Words and music by Henry Clay Work
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by Benjamin R. Tubb:
Lyrics
1. Off on the prairie, where the balmy air
Kisses the waving corn,
There lives a farmer, with a daughter fair–
Fair as a summer’s morn!
She has a nature gentle as a dove,
Pure as the mountain snows;
Say! is it strange that everyone should love–
Love such a girl as Rose?
CHORUS
Beautiful Rose! lovely Rose!
Pride of the prairie bower!
Everybody loves her–everybody knows
She is the fairest flower.
2. Rose is a lady yet from early dawn,
Labors her skillful hand;
She is the housewife, now her mother’s gone–
Gone to the better land.
Rose has the beauty–father has the gold–
Both will be hers one day;
For she is young, while he is growing old–
Old people pass away.
3. Clerks from the city, plowmen from the field,
Lords from a foreign land;
Each in their turn have very humbly kneeled–
Kneeled for her heart and hand.
But to them all she made the same reply–
Kindly but firmly, “No!”
And none but I can tell the reason why–
Why she should treat them so.
Sung by Vancha March: