267. The Lily of the West

 

267

The Lily of the West

Frequently printed as a stall ballad, and recorded from tradition
in Nova Scotia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri (see BSM 132), and
in North Carolina (FSRA 192, two stanzas only). The text in our
collection likewise is incomplete ; the Missouri version has six
stanzas.

Mr. Lamar Lunsford, Leicester, Buncombe county, sang a much
longer version to the North Carolina Folklore Society at Raleigh
on December 5, 1947.

'The Lily of the West.' Secured by Julian P. Boyd of Alliance, Pamlico
county, in 1927, from James Tingle, one of his pupils in the school there.

I I just came down from Louisville
Some pleasure for to find,
A handsome girl from Michigan,
So pleasing to my mind.
She sang, she sang so merrily.
While I was so oppressed.
Her name w^as Handsome Mary,
The Lily of the West.

I I courted her for many a day ;
Her love I thought to gain.
So soon, so soon she slighted me.
Which caused me grief and pain.
She robbed me of my liberty,
Deprived me of my rest ;
Her name was Handsome Mary,
The Lily of the West.