The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #76295 Message #2527089
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
29-Dec-08 - 10:16 PM
Thread Name: Origins: On Top of Old Smoky
Subject: Lyr Add: THE FORSAKEN GIRL (Kittridge)
Lyr. Add: THE FORSAKEN GIRL
(Coll. Kentucky, Katherine Pettit)
1
O William, O William, it's for your sake alone
That I have left my father and mother to mourn;
I left my old father, my mother to mourn,
I am a poor strange girl far from my home.
2
O don't you remember last Saturday night,
The words that you said to me as you sat by my side?
You told me you loved me, your heart lay in my breast,
Unless we got married you never could rest.
3
Here's a bottle of good brandy, here's a bottle of good wine,
To drink to your own love as I shall mourn for mine,
To drink to your own love as you have often done,
For I am a poor strange girl far from my home.
4
I'll build me a castle on the mountain so high,
Where the wild geese can see me as they pass me by,
Where the turtle dove can hear me and help me to mourn,
For I am a poor strange girl and far from my home.
Cf. "Wagoner's Lad," above and "The Poor Stranger, Christie, "Traditional Ballad Airs, ii, 220 (not seen).
G. L. Kittridge, 1907, "Ballads and Rhymes from Kentucky," JAFL vol. 30, no. 79, p. 268.