Chapter I: HAVE FINISHED HIM A LETTER, 4abcb and 4abcb, 7: A maiden's complaint

against her lover, who has forsaken her for Annie Lee.

CAN YOU THEN LOVE ANOTHER?, ii, 3abcbdefe and 3abcb, 3: A lorn maiden's plaint:

Say, must I be forgotten,
Cast like a flower aside?
Have I from memory faded,
Once all your joy and pride?

TO CHEER THE HEART, ii, 3abcbdefe and 3abcbdede, 4: A maiden's complaint against her faithless lover. He is the son of a "rich merchant," she, the daughter of a "laboring man." "But why need I care? For I have another man."

A POOR STRANGE GIRL, 4aabb, 7: The poet one May morning overhears a damsel complaining against her faithless lover, and against her loss of friends and home.

PRETTY POLLY, 4aabb, 5: A lover recites his visit one evening to her home, where he sees his rivals enjoying her company. He retires to a grove, sucks comfort from his whiskey bottle, and wishes that she were drowned, floating on the tide, that he, like a fisherman, might draw her in his net to shore.

HANG DOWN YOUR HEAD AND CRY, 4aabb, 2: A fragment (two quatrains), apparently a complaint of a lover to his faithless sweetheart.

THE DYING GIRL'S MESSAGE, ii, 4abcb, 15: Her death-song to her mother, breathing forgiveness for her faithless lover, and closing with a vision of Christ waiting to receive her.

A second version contains only an elaboration of this last motif.

THE COLD, DARK SCENES OF WINTER, 3abcb, 9: In the winter the lover woos his fair, but is rejected. In the spring, her mind changing, she writes him of her love for him. He replies that meanwhile his heart has changed in turn and that he is already married to another.

LOVING HANNER, 3abcb, 9: The lover sings his devotion to her, but in the face of her coolness and her parents' opposition, vows to go on a long voyage to try to forget her--but in vain.

MY BONNIE LITTLE GIRL, 4a3b4c3b, 4: Courting her too slow, the singer finds his sweetheart has fled with another man.

LOVELY NANCY, ii, 4aabb, 5ca: A bachelor's warning against "courting too slow": Sweet William goes on a voyage; meanwhile Nancy, his sweetheart, writes him of her marriage to another. William dies of grief and Nancy, of remorse.

I'M SCORNED FOR BEING POOR (VAIN GIRL), 3abcb, 8: A lover's farewell to his sweetheart, who has forsaken him to be married to a wealthy stranger from New England.

LITTLE NELLIE, 4a3b4c3b, 8: She forsakes her lover, the singer, to marry wicked, wealthy Mr. Brown, who is a drunkard--and dies of a broken heart.

THE SQUIRE, 2abcb, 10: The wealthy young squire, being rejected in love by pretty Sally, vows to dance on her grave when she dies.

LITTLE SPARROW (A REGRET), ii, 4abcb, 5ca: A complaint of a love-lorn maiden warning her kind against the faithlessness of all men.

THE AWFUL WEDDING, 4abcb, 7: At the marriage feast each guest is asked for a song. The bride's former lover sings his unchanging affection for her. She swoons and spends the night in her mother's bed, where she is found dead the next morning.

THE YOUNG MAN'S LOVE, 2aa, 9: The singer one evening overhears a young man lamenting the faithlessness of his sweetheart, who scorns him for his poverty.

[MAGGIE], 3a3b4c3b and 2abab (approximately), 7: A story of Maggie, the constant wife, who seeks in bar-room and dry-goods store her faithless husband, who has eloped with Lula Fry. Failing to find him, she wanders to the cemetery, and thence to the railroad trestle, where she is killed by train No. Four.

JOE HARDY, 4a3b4c3b, 6: A maiden's explanation to her jilted lover that when she plighted her troth in Bangor, she had not then met Joe Hardy, whom she now adores.

3. SONGS OF LOVE THWARTED.

LOVELY JULIA, iv, 4abcb, 9ca: Crossed in love by her parents, she leaves the city, goes upon a mountain, and plunges a dagger into her breast. Her lover finds her and in like manner dies with her.

JOHNNY DOYLE, 2aa, 14ca: A maiden, who loves Johnny, is forced by her parents to prepare to marry Samuel Moore. Just as the priest enters, her earrings fall to the floor and her stay-laces burst. She is carried home fatally ill. The mother now proposes to send for Johnny Doyle, but it is too late--she is dead.

ANNIE WILLOW, iii, 4a3b4c3b, 8: Her lover dreams of her and goes to her uncle's house to visit her. Upon being told that she is absent, he fights his way in with drawn sword and takes her away with him.

GREENBRIAR SHORE, 4aa, 10: An amorous youth recites his love for Nancy on Greenbriar Shore. Her father chases him away with an "army of a thousand or more." The sad lot of womankind deplored.

4. SONGS OF ABSENT LOVERS REUNITED.

THE SINGLE SOLDIER (THE SAILOR LOVER, JOHN RILEY), v, 4abcb, 8ca: "A pretty fair damsel in a garden" is wooed by a passing soldier (or sailor). She rejects him, saying her lover is absent in the wars. Assured of her faithfulness, he proves his identity by taking their betrothal ring from his pocket.

ANNIE AND WILLIE, 4a3b4c3b, 7: He bids her farewell at the seashore and goes on a long voyage. After three years he returns, and, disguised as a beggar, tests her devotion, draws the "patch from his eye," is recognized, and marries her. (Cf. The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington, page 8, above.)

PRETTY POLLY, 4aabb, 8: Pining for her soldier lover, who is absent in the "town of renown," she goes in the guise of a trooper to seek him, becomes his room-mate for the night, and discloses her identity in the morning.

5. SONGS OF THE MURDEROUS LOVER. (CF. I FOR SIMILAR BALLADS.)

FLORELLA (FLOELLA, FAIR ELLA, JEALOUS LOVER), iv, 3abcb, 11ca: Her lover comes one moonlit night to her cottage window and persuades her to wander with him "through meadows dark and gay." She reluctantly follows, and is murdered by him, forgiving him with her dying breath.

LITTLE OMY WISE (LITTLE ANNA), iii, 4aa, 13: John Lewis seduces her with promises, lures her to Adam's Spring, murders her, and throws her body into the stream. She is "missen," the body is found, the murderer views it and confesses the crime.

MILLER-BOY, ii, 4a3b4c3b, 12ca: Johnny, the miller's apprentice, falls in love with a Knoxville girl. One night the pair go walking; he murders her with a fence-stake, explains the stains on his clothes as due to nose-bleed, but is convicted. (Cf. Lizzie Wan, Child, No. 51, and Waxford Girl, page 13.)

POLLY VAUGHN, 2abcb (approximately), 4ca: One evening dressed in white she goes walking, takes refuge from a shower under a holly bush, is mistaken for a swan by her lover, Jimmy Randal, and shot.

ROSE COLALEE (COLLEEN?), 4a3b4c3b, 2: She is murdered on the bank of a river, by her lover, who, intoxicated with Burgundy wine, is persuaded by his father's promise of money, to slay her.

NOTE.--_Amid the flotsam and jetsam of popular parlor-songs everywhere current the following have come to hand. They are hardly worth preserving, even by title, save for the fact that in spite of their pseudo-literary tang they are fellow travelers by oral tradition with the true folk-songs and song-ballads._

The list is: The Old, Old Love is Growing Still; There's a Spark of Love Still Burning; I'll Remember You, Love, in My Prayers; The White Rose; I'll Love Thee Always; Jack and Mary; Willie and Kate; Won't You Ever Come Again?; Fond Affection; Will You Love Me When I'm Old?; Nell and I had Quarrels; Tell Me Why You've Grown so Cold?; I Want to be Somebody's Darling; By the Gate; The Broken Engagement; Say You'll be Mine in a Year; I Cannot be Your Sweetheart; Kiss Me Again; Just Going Down to the Gate; Darling, We have Long been Parted; Our Hands are Clasped; Only Flirting; I Loved You Better than You Knew; Mollie Darling; The Jealous Girl; The Independent Girl; Willie, Come Back; Free Again; The Hawthorn Tree; The Sailor Lad; I'll be All Smiles Tonight; Love, I've been Faithful; Maggie's Secret; I Rather Think I Will; Little Sweetheart; Meet Me in the Moonlight; He's Got Money, Too; After the Ball; Sweet Bunch of Daisies; In the Shadow of the Pines; On the Banks of the Wabash; Mary has Gone with a "Coon."

XII.

_This group contains two-part songs, arranged dialogue-fashion, like a debat or a tenson. All contain love-themes, as in XI above. In spite of the obvious logical cross-division, it has seemed well to print them as a separate section._

I'LL GIVE TO YOU A PAPER OF PINS, ii, 4aab3b, 13: The lover offers the maiden in alternate quatrains various gifts to induce her to marry him. She replies in alternate quatrains, refusing him. Finally, he offers "the key of his chest." She accepts, but he scorns her mercenary love.

MADAM, I'VE A-COURTING COME, 4a3b4c3b, 7: The lover in the first three quatrains offers his various forms of wealth to induce the lady to marry him. She refuses in the fifth stanza his mercenary love. He makes reply in the sixth and she in the seventh.

TWO LETTERS, ii, 3abcb, 13: The first four quatrains constitute the letter from Charley Brooks to Nelly Adair, asking for the return of his presents to her, since his love for her has grown cold. The last nine are her reply, acquiescing with a sad dignity.

[STONY HILL], 4a3b4c3b, 3: Each quatrain contains, in couplets respectively, question and reply of lover and sweetheart, who is "sixteen next Sunday" and has to "ask her mammy."

STELLA, 4a3b4c3b, 14: A dialogue between Alfred, a volunteer at his country's call, to Stella, his sweetheart.

THE WAGGONER'S LAD: See Section IX.

KAINTUCKY BOYS: See Section X.

BUCKSKIN BOYS: See Section X.

XIII.

_This group consists of humorous songs. Certain ones resemble modern songs of the vaudeville, and such they probably were._

GRANDMOTHER'S MUSTARD PLASTER, 4aabb, 7ca: The story of a plaster that drew the buttons from a vest, axles from a wagon, a street car forty miles, jerked a "Chinee's" boot off and pulled his leg at the "opium jint," mashed a "cop's" hat down, drew a wagon over town, stuck on a passenger train, drew it to Washington, where it remained--stuck on politics.

BOY AND BUMBLE-BEE, 4a3b4c3b(?), 5: An urchin puts a bumble-bee in his pistol pocket and goes fishing. He sits down, the bee turns the trick, and "spoils the urchin's disposition."

KATE AND THE CLOTHIER, 4aabb, 8ca: A jilted maiden disguises herself in "an old cowhide with crooked horns," and seizes her clothier-lover in a "lonesome field." Thinking her to be the Devil, he renounces the lawyer's daughter and pledges his troth to Kate.

SEYMORE WILSON, 3a3b4c3b, 8ca: He is a gawky, love-sick youth. He goes a-courting on Potriffle, but finding a rival sitting on the "calico-side" returns to his plowing, weeps, then becomes cheerful in his resolve to wait for another girl.

BILLY BOY, ii, 4a3b4c3b, 7: He replies to a series of questions about his wife: she is "too young to leave her mammy," can "bake a cherry-pie," is "as tall as a pine and as straight as a pumpkin-vine," is "twice six times seven, twice twenty and eleven," and so on.

[THE PREACHER AND THE BEAR], a chant of the 4a3b4c3b type, 7ca: He goes hunting a-Sunday, meets a grizzly bear, climbs a tree, and prays a humorous prayer for help. The limb breaks; he falls, but escapes.

[LOVE IS SUCH A FUNNY THING], 4a3b4c3b4d3e4f3e and 4a3b4c3b, 9: It causes empty pockets, second-hand clothing, collectors, and even brings the "bald-headed end of the broom" into play: a husband's soliloquy.

[THE MARRIED MAN], 4aa, 5: A married man's woes: children on his knees, bad clothing, "seeping" shoes--while the single man suffers none of these things.

DEVILISH MARY, 4a3b4c3b, 5: A hen-pecked husband's lament: he woos and marries the termagant within three days--then follows trouble. She "mashes his mouth with a shovel," bundles up her "duds", and leaves him within three weeks.

I WON'T MARRY AT ALL, 4aab3b and 4aab3b, 3: I won't marry a rich man because he will drink and fall in the ditch; a poor man, for he will go begging; a fat man, for he will do nothing but "nurse" the cat.

POOR OLD MAID, metre as below, 5: She laments her virginity:

Dressed in yaller, pink, and blue--
Poor old maid!
Dressed in yaller, pink, and blue,
I'm just as sweet as the morning dew,
And to a husband I'd stick like glue--
Poor old maid!