Lyr. Add: Florella (The Jealous Lover)
From the "fiddler Waters," 1903, MO)

1
One evening when the moon shone brightly
There fell a gentle dew,
When out of a cottage
A jealous lover drew.
2
Says he to fair young Ellen:
'Down on the sparkling brook
We'll wait and watch and wonder
Upon our wedding day.'
3
'O Edward, I am weary,
I do not wish to roam,
For roaming seems so dreary;
Please, Edward, take me home.
4
'Hard-hearted cruel monster,
Don't draw that knife on me,
For you know not half the danger
May happen unto thee.'
5
But as she knelt before him
She begged him spare her life;
But in this fair young bosom
He splunged a daggered knife.
6
'O Edward, I'll forgive thee
Though this be my last breath.
I never was deceiving,
Though I close my eyes in death,'
7
He smiled not when he pressed her
To his hard and cruel heart;
He smiled not when he kissed her-
'But you and I must part.'
8
She died not broken-hearted,
Sickness, pain nor woe;
But soon in death she parted
From all she loved below.
9
Down yander beneath the valley,
Where the violets are in bloom,
There sleeps a fair young damsel,
All silent in the tomb.

A. pp. 325-326, Belden, H. M. Editor, 1940, Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, Univ. Missouri Studies Vol. XV, No. 1, Univ. Missouri Press.

Perhaps more than one source for this complex of murder ballads; surprised that they have not been posted before.