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Tom Dula's Lament
A
From Mrs. Maude Minish Sutton, Lenoir. This is the third of the
trilogy of ballads already discussed. Calling it "Dula's own song,"
she accounts for its origin and discusses it as follows : "Dula was again
convicted and sentenced to die on May i, 1868. His friends brought
his banjo to him in States ville and he composed and sang the ballad
about his banjo and the murder. It is in the same spirit as that in
which MacPherson, Burns's hero, 'Sae wantonly, sae dauntonly' sang 'be-
neath the gallows tree.' "
Mrs. Sutton's attribution of the song to Dula's authorship is not sup-
ported by the long, circumstantial account of the execution written by
the New York Herald reporter and published in the Herald next day.
1 I pick my banjo now,
I pick it on my knee.
This time tomorrow night
It'll be no more use to me.
2 The banjo's been my friend
In days both dark and ill.
A-layin' here in jail
It's helped me time to kill.
3 Poor Laura loved its tunes
When sitting 'neath a tree;
I'd play and sing to her.
My head upon her knee.
4 Poor Laura loved me well.
She was both fond and true ;
How deep her love for me
I never really knew.
5 Her black curl on my heart,
I'll meet my fatal doom,
As swift as she met hers
That dreadful evening's gloom.
6 I've lived my life of sin,
I've had a bit of fun.
Come, Ann, kiss me goodby,
My race is nearly run.
714 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
No title. Obtained by Miss Edith Walker, Boone, from Mrs. Laura
Timmons, of Boone, who got it from Mr. R. F. Greene, of Boone or
the vicinity, in the spring of 1947. (See headnote to 'The Murder of
Laura Foster.')
One more night and one more day,
And where do you reckon I'll be?
Down in the valley, the valley so low.
Hanging on a white-oak tree.