A "Young Collins" from West Virginia:

Lyr. Add: Young Collins
1
Young Collins out from his fields one day,
the trees and the flowers were in bloom.
'Twas there he spied young Ellen, dear, dear,
a washing a marble white tomb.
2
He clasped her around her slender waist,
he kissed both her cheek and her chin
Till the stars from heaven came tumbling down
to the spot where young Collins lay.
3
She screamed, she cried she changed he mind
She waved her lily white hand.
"Come here, come here, young Collins, my dear,
your life is near at hand."
4
He ran, he ran to his own father's house
till he came to his father's door
Saying, "Father, dear Father, pray let me in,
I pray let me in once more."
5
"If I should die this very night
Which I feel in my mind I will,
Go bury me under the marble white tomb
at the foot of dear Ellen's green hill."
6
As Ellen was sitting in her own cottage door
All dressed up in silk so fine,
It was there she saw a casket coming
as far as her eyes could shine.
7
"Whose casket, whose casket, I see,
who lies in that casket so fine?"
"'Tis young Johnny Collins, a clay cold corpse
who lies in that casket so fine."
8
She ordered the casket to be opened forthwith
and she gazed on his cold clay form
And took the last kiss from his clay cold lips
as oft they had kissed hers before.
9
She ordered the shroud to be brought right there
and trimmed it with lace so fine-
"For today they weep o'er Collin's grave-
tomorrow they'll weep over mine."

Coll. from singing of Hazel Karickhoff, 1940, Upshur County.

With musical score, p. 21, Marie Boette, editor, Singa Hipsy Doodle and other Folk Songs of West Virginia, McClain Printing Company, Parsons, West Virginia.