Lyr. Add: MATILDA

Matilda *dé 'pon dyin' bed,
Matilda dé 'pon dyin' bed,
Matilda dé: 'pon dyin' bed,
Matilda dé 'pon dyin' bed,
Me want go *Colebra,
Me want go Colebra,
Matilda dé 'pon dyin' bed.

With musical score.
A dancing tune. At the time, if someone was ill, all relatives descended on the sick person's yard.
*dé also written as deh
*Culebra, on the Panama Canal cut near Colon. Matilda must have gone there to work or settle.

Walter Jekyll, 1907, Jamaican Song and Story, Dover reprints.