Subject: Lyr Add: Delia Holmes
From:
Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Oct 13 - 02:54 PM
Lyr. Add: DELIA HOLMES
Delia, Delia, why didn't you run?
See that desperado and a forty-four smokeless gun.
Crying, "All I had done gone."
Refrain-
All I had done gone!
All I had done gone!
Goodbye, Mother, friends and all,
All I had done gone!
Now Coonie and his little sweetheart setting down talking low,
Asked her would she marry him, she said, "Why sure."
Crying "All I had done gone."
When the time come for marriage, she refused to go.
"If you don't marry me, you cannot live no more."
Shot her with a pistol, number forty-four.
"You did not marry me, you cannot live no more."
Turned poor Delia over on her side very slow,
She was crying, "Coonie, please don't shoot no more."
All I had done gone!
All I had done gone!
Good-bye, mother, friends and all,
All I had done gone!
Death had proceeded. It wasn't so very long
Till her mother come running with a bucket on her arm.
"Tell me, my darling, what have you done wrong,
Caused Coonie to shoot you with that .44 smokeless gun?"
"Some give a nickel, some give a dime,
Help to bury this body of mine."
Threw down his pistol and tried to get away,
Officers picked him up in just a few days.
Placed him in the jail till his trial should come.
"Tell me now, officer, what have I done?"
They asked him did he remember this "A girl that you were in love,
And spoken things unto her that instantly took her nerve?"
"She moved closely beside of me and threw her arms around."
"Do you remember little Delia Holmes and which you shot down?"
"Have I any bond, or can I get one,
For the crime that I am charged, I plead guilty I have done?"
All I had done gone!
All I had done gone!
Good-bye, mother, friends and all,
All I had done gone!
The judge that tried him, handsome with the time,
Say, "Coonie, if I don't hang you, I'll give you ninety-nine.
"Ninety-nine years in prison working among the stone,
Hope that you'll get sorry that you have wrecked a home."
Coonie went to Atlanta, drinking from a silver cup,
Poor little Delia's in the cemetery, I hope to never wake up.
Delia's mother taken a trip out West,
Just to keep from hearing the talk of poor little Delia's death.
Everywhere the train would stop you could hear the people moan,
Singing that lonesome song, "Poor Delia's dead and gone."
Rubber-tired buggy, rubber-tired hack,
Take you to the cemetery, don't never bring you back.
All I had done gone!
All I had done gone!
Good-bye, mother, friends and all, All I had done gone!
Coonie wrote to the Governor, asked, "Pardon me,
I was charged with murder in the first degree.
"The judge was liberal in giving me my time,
Happened that he didn't hang me, but he gave me ninety-nine.
"I am now a murderer, serving a long, long time,
And if you will pardon me, I'll not be guilty of another crime.
"This is Coonie in Atlanta, working among the stone,
Have been here for forty-five years, and I'm now needed at home."
Crying all I had done gone.
ALL I had done gone!
All I had done gone!
Good-bye, mother, friends and all,
All I had done gone.
Comment- Collected from the singing of Will Winn, South Carolina, 1937. See Chapman J. Milling, "Delia Holmes- a Neglected Negro Ballad," SFQ, Dec. 1937, pp. 3-8.
Duncan Emrich, 1974, "American Folk Poetry, An Anthology," pp. 724-726.
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