Lyr Req: Bell Brandon (Garrett/Woolcott)

Subject: Little Belle Brandon
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Dec 98 - 10:25 AM

Another request from dad: words to a really old tearjerker called "Little Belle Brandon". My great grandfather, who was a deputy u.s. marshall in the Cherokee Strip, who wound up having to kill a lot of "desperado-types" throughout his career, when he grew old, used to sit with a friend of similar experiences and sing this song and according to dad, "bawl their eyes out". Words to this would really mean a lot to both of us. Thanks to anyone who can help. Kat

Subject: RE: Little Belle Brandon
From: Bruce O.
Date: 29 Dec 98 - 02:43 PM

In Levy sheet music collection (Mudcat's Links), Box 126, Items 6 & 7.

Subject: Lyr Add: BELL BRANDON (Garrett/Woolcott)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 01:00 AM

From the sheet music at The Library of Congress American Memory Collection:

BELL BRANDON
Words, T. Ellwood Garrett. Music, Francis Woolcott. 1854.

'Neath a tree by the margin of the woodland,
Whose spreading leafy boughs sweep the ground,
With a path leading thither o'er the prairie,
When silence hung her night garb around,
There often I have wandered in the evening,
When the summer winds are fragrant on the lea.
{There I saw the little beauty, Bell Brandon,
And we met 'neath the old arbor tree.} x4

Bell Brandon was a birdling of the mountain.
In freedom she sported on her wing;
And they said the life-current of the Red Man
Tinged her veins from a far distant spring.
She loved her humble dwelling on the prairie,
And her guileless happy heart clung to me,
{And I loved the little beauty, Bell Brandon,
And we both loved the old arbor tree.} x4

On the trunk of the aged tree I carved them;
Our names on the sturdy form remain.
But I now repair in sorrow to its shelter
And murmur to the wild wind my pain.
Oft I sit there in solitude repining
For the beauty-dream that night brought to me.
{Death has wed the little beauty, Bell Brandon,
And she sleeps 'neath the old arbor tree.} x4

Subject: RE: Little Belle Brandon
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 01:02 AM

Thanks, Jim. I'd forgotten about this.

kat

Subject: RE: Little Belle Brandon
From: masato sakurai
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 05:10 AM

An edition is at Levy too:

Title: Bell Brandon. Ballad. 50th Edition.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Written by T. Ellwood Garrett. Music by F. Woolcott.
F. Woolcott Publication: St. Louis: Balmer & Weber, 56 Fourth St., 1854.