71
The Drowsy Sleeper
Familiar both in print and as traditional song on both sides of
the water; see BSM 1 18-19, and add to the references there given
Virginia (FSV 56-7), North Carolina (FSRA 81-2; a fragment
of it sung by Negroes, ANFS 177-8), Florida (SFLQ viii 167-8),
Arkansas (OFS i 246), Missouri (OFS i 244-6), Ohio (BSO
92-4), Indiana (BSI 170-4), Michigan (BSSM 86-8), Illinois
(JAFL LX 223-4), and Wisconsin (JAFL lii 31). Mrs. Steely
found it in the Ebenezer community in Wake county. It is No.
518 in the series of stall ballads printed by Wehnian in New York.
For its possible relation to the Gude and Godlic Ballatcs of 1567,
see JEFDSS in 161-4. Very often it is combined, as in version
B below, with 'The Silver Dagger,' probably because of the weapon
(sometimes specifically a dagger) which the girl tells her lover
that her father (or mother) has in readiness against him.
A
'Awake, Arise.' Secured by Mrs. Sutton from the singing of a woman
who "could not read or write." Mrs. Sutton notes : "This ballad is
chiefly noticeable lor its tune; ... it is like a gypsy song, all wailing
minors."
1 'Awake, arise, you drowsy sleeper !
Awake, arise ; it's near about day.
Awake, arise ; go ask your father
If you're my bride to be.
And if you're not, come back and tell me ;
It's the very last time I'll bother thee.'
2 'I cannot go and ask my father,
For he is on his bed of rest
And in his hand he holds a weapon
To kill the one I love the best.'
* This may represent "sick and sad" or "taken sad."
256 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE
3 'Ah, Mary, dear Mary, you know I love you!
You've nearly caused my heart to break.
From North Carolina to Pennsylvany
I'd cross the wide ocean for your sake.
4 'I'll build my house on some distant river
And there I'll spend my days and years.
And I'll eat nothing but green willow
And drink nothing but my tears.'
'Charlie and Bessie.' Contributed by W. Amos Abrams of Boone in
1937 with the note that "my father learned this from my mother about
1907." Here the story is definitely combined with that of 'The Silver
Dagger.'
1 'Bessie, oh, Bessie, go and ask your father
If you can be a bride of mine.
And if he says "no," please come and tell me
And I'll no longer bother thee.'
2 'Oh, Charlie, oh, Charlie, I need not ask him.
He's in the room a-taking his rest,
And in his right hand a silver dagger
To kill the one that I love best.'
3 'Bessie, oh, Bessie, go ask your mother
If you can be a bride of mine.
And if she says "no," please come and tell me
And I'll no longer bother thee.'
4 'Charlie, oh, Charlie, I need not ask her.
She's in the room a-taking her rest.
And in her right hand a silver dagger
To kill the one that I love best.'
5 And he taken up that silver dagger
And plunged it in his snowy white breast.
Saying, 'Farewell, Bessie, farewell, darling;
Sometimes the best of friends must part.'
6 And she taken up that bloody weapon
And plunged it in her lily-white breast.
Saying, 'Farewell, father; farewell, mother;
I'll die with the one that I love best.'
c
'An Ardent Lover,' Another quite different text from Professor
Abrams. It begins with a "bedroom window" stanza :
'Who's that, who's that at my bedroom window
That calls so loud as to wake me up ?'
OLDER BALLADS MOSTLY BRITISH 257
"Tis he, 'tis he, he's your own true love here,
Here, for your sake, I'm standing here.'
In the ensuing dialogue he is told that her father "holds a reaper To
slay the one that breaks his rest," and that her mother "holds a letter
From that young man that I love best." Whereupon follow the two
concluding stanzas :
'Love, oh, love, she said she wouldn't have me.
I'll sail the ocean till I die.
Then I'll sail away then to the sea
If I can find some girl that will have me.
'Oh, don't you see them clouds rising,
Dark and thick, and thunder roar?
I live in hopes to see some pleasure
Before these clouds does overblow,'
D
'Oh, You Drowsy Sleeper.' Secured from James York of Olin, Iredell
county, in 1939. Slightly longer than the preceding versions. The first
two stanzas are :
'Wake up, wake up, you drowsy sleeper,
Wake up, wake up; 'tis almost day.
How can you lie there and slumber
When your true love is a-going away?'
'Who is this at my side window
A-calling of my name so sweet?'
'It's a young man that you are loving.
One word with thee I wish to speak.'
Then follows the dialogue, in which it appears that the mother (who
is mentioned first) holds in her hands "a letter To read to her children
in distress" and the father a weapon wherewith "To slay the young
man that I love best."
It ends with two stanzas from 'Little Sparrow* :
'I wish I was a little sparrow.
One of them that could i\y so high.
I'd fly and sit on my true love's dwelling.
And when she talked I'd be close by.
'Neither am I a little sparrow
And neither do I have wings to fly ;
So I'll sit down and weep in sorrow,
I'll sing and pass my troubles by.'
E
'O Drowsy Sleeper.' From Otis Kuykendall of Asheville, 1939. A
truncated text of four stanzas, the last of which does not appear in our
other versions:
Oh, who is that in yon porch window
A-talking of your own true love?
Oh yes, oh yes, it is my darhng,
It is the one that I love best.
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71
The Drowsy Sleeper
A
'Awake, Arise.' Sung by anonymous singer. Recorded as MS score by Mrs.
Sutton, but no date or place given. Songs like this one, and Mrs. Sutton's
remark, "It is like a gypsy song, all wailing minors'" (italics by this editor),
make one sincerely doubt Mrs. Sutton's qualifications and judgment in musical
matters. There is of course no minor quality in this song, "wailing" or other-
wise. The text of this version is a contraction of SharpK i 359, No. 57B,
stanzas i and 3.
Scale: Hexatonic (4). Tonal Center : c. Structure: abaMjia'b' (, 2.2,2,2,2,2 ) :
aa^ai (4,4,4).
'Charlie and Bessie.' Sung by Mrs. B. Greene. Recorded at Zionville, Watauga
county, September 11, 1939. Other titles given are 'The Silver Dagger' and
'Wake Up, You Drowsy Sleeper.'
For melodic relationship cf. *SharpK i 358, No. 57A, measures 2-8, general
melodic outline.
Scale: Mode III, plagal. Tonal Center: g. Structure: aba^bi (2,2,2,2) = aa^
(4,4).
'Oh, You Drowsy Sleeper.' Sung by Mrs. James York. Recorded probably at
Olin, Iredell county, in 1939.
Scale: Hexatonic (2), plagal. Tonal Center: g. Structure: aa^bc (2,2,2,2)
ab (4.4)- Rhythmically, the four subphrases are practically identical.
'O Drowsy Sleeper.' Sung by Otis Kuykendall. Recorded at Asheville in 1939.
This tune is quite similar to 'The 'Prentice Boy' sung by Aunt Becky Gordon
(62B).
For melodic relationship cf. **SharpK i 360, No. 57C.
Scale: Mode III, plagal. Tonal Center: f. Structure: aabc (2,2,2.2) = ab
(4,4).