Drowsy Sleepers- Mrs. Griffin (GA-FL) 1877 Morris
[From: Folksongs of Florida; Morris, 1950. This is a rare US version with a corruption of the Scotch ending found in "I Will put My Ship in Order.'
R. Matteson 2016]
"Drowsy Sleepers." Recorded from the singing of Mrs. G. A. Griffin, Newberry, who learned the song from her father before 1877.
"It's wake, it's wake, you drowsy sleepers;
It's wake, it's wake, it's almost day.
How can you sleep, you cruel creature,
Whilst your true love is a-going away?"
"Go, pray Love, and ask your father,
And ask him if you can't now marry me.
And if he says 'no,' pray Love, come and tell me,
And I'll go away and not bother thee."
"My old father's in the upper chamber,
A-taking of his natural rest,
And in his right hand holds a weapon
To kill the man that I love best."
"Go, pray Love, and ask your mother
If you now can't marry me;
And if she says 'no,' pray Love, come and tell me,
And I'll go away and not bother thee."
"My mother's up in the upper chamber,
A-taking of her natural rest;
In her right hand she holds a letter
To read to girls that's in distress.[1]"
"I'll go away to some silent meadows,
And there I'll spend my days and years;
My eats shall be with the griefs and sorrow,
My drinks shall be of the briny tear."
1. In Greig-Duncan C this line is "And it speaks greatly to your dispraise.' Clearly this is a corruption of that. A stanza would follow where her lover would defend himself: To my dispraise, to my dispraise? etc.