The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #33707   Message #2803634
Posted By: Jim Dixon
04-Jan-10 - 10:30 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Death of Willie
Subject: Lyr Add: LITTLE WILLY
From The Beloit Poetry Journal, Volumes 5-8 (Beloit, Wis.: Beloit College, [1955-58?]), page 34:

LITTLE WILLY
Tune: Darling Nellie Gray

He has gone away and left us, our darling blue-haired boy,
And we'll never see our Willy any more.
For he died and went away on the ninety-third of May,
And he never died so suddenly before.

CHORUS: No more upon the mat will Willy tease the cat,
No more between his teeth he'll bite her tail.
No more against the red-hot stove her dainty nose he'll press,
For our darling little Willy's kicked the pail.

Oh we filled him up with glue and we tried to bring him to,
But we only brought him eight or nine or more.
We stood him on the chair but he didn't like it there,
So he stood right up and died upon the floor.

We could tell that he was dying by the color of his breath,
We could see the blossom nipping in the bud.
And the doctor said the only way to save our darling child
Was to stop the circulation of his blood.

We soaked his little hand in a bucket of hot sand
But all our little efforts were in vain.
We laid him on his side where he blew his nose and died,
Then he stood up, blew his nose, and died again.

Collected by EM Collins, Houston, Texas, 1952.