I
“Barbara Ellen.” Collected by Miss Alfreda M. Peel. Sung by Texas Gladden, near Salem, Va. Roanoke County. May 27, 1917. With music.
1 “Way down yonder in London town,
That’s where I got my learning,
I fell in love with a nice young girl,
Her name was Barbara Ellen.
2 “I courted her for seven long years,
She said she would not marry.”
Sweet Willie went home and taken down sick,
And sent for Barbara Ellen.
— Page 319 —
3 She dressed so slow for she hated to go,
“Go tell him I am coming.”
As she went walking through the room,
She heard some birds a-singing.
4 She walked up to Sweet Willie’s bedside:
“Young man, I think you’re dying.”
He turned his face to the cold, cold wall
And busted out a-crying.
5 “Do you remember the other day,
We were down at the tavern a-drinking,
You drank your health to the ladies all around,
And slighted Barbara Ellen?”
6 “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” said he,
“I think you are mistaken;
I drank my health to the ladies all around,
My love to Barbara Ellen.”
7 She went walking to the road,
She heard some birds a-singing,
And every one it seemed to say,
“Hard-hearted Barbara Ellen.”
8 She looked to the East and then to the West,
She spied a corpse a-coming.
“Oh bring him here and lay him down,
That I might look upon him.”
9 The more she looked the more she wept,
She busted out to crying.
“I might have saved this young man’s life
And kept him from hard dying.
10 “Oh mother, make my bed
And make it long and narrow;
Sweet Willie died for the love of me,
And I shall die for sorrow.”
11 “They buried Sweet Willie in the new church yard
And Barbara in attire;
In Willie’s grave sprang a bright red rose
And on Barbara Ellen’s a green brier.
12 They grew as tall as the new church top,
They could not grow any higher;
They wrapped and tied a true bow-knot,
And the rose ran down the brier.
