There was a jolly miller once
Liv'd on the river Dee,
He work'd and sang from morn till night,
No lark more blithe than he,
And this the burden of his song
Forever us'd to be,
"I care for nobody, no not I,
If nobody cares for me."

I live by my mill, she is to me
Like parent, child and wife,
I would not change my station
For any other in life
No lawyer, surgeon, doctor
E'er had a groat from me,
And I care for nobody, no not I,
If nobody cares for me.

abc | midi | pdf

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Source: Sabine Baring Gould, 1895, Old English Songs from English Minstrelsie

Notes:
This is taken from the selection of the eight volume work by Baring Gould of the same name, reprinted by Llanerch Publishers.

From Frank Kidson - Grove entries:

Miller Of The Dee, The

A song which has attained great popularity, commencing 'There was a jolly miller once lived on the river Dee'. It first appeared in print in the opera Love in a Village, 1702. It was then, apparently, an old song used by the compiler of the opera, and only the first verse was employed: the full song will be found in many 18th-century songsters, such as St Cecilia, Edinburgh 1779, etc. The tune was one originally adapted to a cant song, and under the title The bludgeon it is a fine Trade was used in several ballad operas, as The Fashionable Lady, 1730, The Devil to pay, 1732, etc. Without any title the air is given in the Quaker's Opera, 1728.

Curious traditional versions survive in the south of England, as Here's a Health unto our Master, and The Jolly Woodcutter. See Sussex Songs and English County Songs.

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