They call me The Wild Rose But my name was Elisa Day Why they call me it I do not know For my name was Elisa Day
From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one She stared in my eyes and smiled For her lips were the colour of the roses That grew down the river, all bloody and wild When he knocked on my door and entered the room My trembling subsided in his sure embrace He would be my first man, and with a careful hand He wiped up the tears that ran down my face
On the second day I brought her a flower She was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen And I said, 'Do you know where the wild roses grow So sweet and scarlet and free?' On the second day he came with a single rad rose Said: 'Give me your loss and your sorrow?' I nodded my head, as I lay on the bed If I show you the roses will you follow?'
On the third day he took me to the river He showed me the roses and we kissed And the last thing I heard was a muttered word As he knelt above me with a rock in his fist On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief As I kissed her goodbye, I said, 'All beauty must die' And I lent down and planted a rose between her teeth
Elisa Day was a prostitute from a run down part of new york. A rich man from out of town fell in love with her not knowing that she was "working lady." He thought that she was poor and the money that she asked for was to feed herself or her family and that by giving her this treatment he thought that she would marry him and go with him. The gentleman went looking for her and went to her house where anter prostitute told him where she would be. he went to the local public house where hesaw her coming out with another man and taking money from him for her services. He plotted to confront her to find out what or who she really was. The couple met and he begged her to quit whashe was doing but she refused so he pretended that he understood and took her to a river where he hit her and drowned her. The rose was the first flower the gentleman gave her and it is true that he placed one between her teeth when he killed her. The gentleman was never found but the body of elisa was found in marshes where she was floating with the rose. To this day roses still grow and it is still said today that the spirit of elisa tends to the flowers every day.