George Collins- Dent (WV) pre-1917 Cox C
[From: Folk-Songs of the South- John Harrington Cox, 1925. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
17. LADY ALICE (Child, No. 85)
Five variants have been recovered in West Virginia, under various titles. A, B, and E represent one version, C and D another. They all differ widely from the Child versions.
A Pennsylvania version going back almost to 1800 was printed by Child, No. 279. For other American texts see Journal, xxviii, 151 (Perrow; North Carolina); Focus, m, 154, and iv, 50 (Virginia); Campbell and Sharp, No. 22 (North Carolina, Tennessee); Campbell, The Survey, New York, January 2, 1915, xxxm, 373 (two stanzas from Georgia). For other American references see Journal, xxx, 317. Add Bulletin, Nos. 6-10.
C. "George Collins." Communicated by Mr. R. C. Kelly, Sutton, Braxton County, January, 191 7; obtained from Howard Dent and Lidel Evans, who learned it in the lumber camps.
1. George Collins rode home one cold rainy night,
George Collins rode home so fine;
George Collins rode home one cold rainy night,
And taken sick and died.
2. Little Hattie was sitting in her mother's room,
A-sewing on silk so fine;
When she heard poor George had died,
She laid her silk aside.
3. She followed him up, she followed him down,
She followed him to his grave;
And there upon her knees she fell,
She wept, she moaned, she prayed.
4 She sat down on the coffin: "Take off the lid,
Fold back the linen so fine,
That I may kiss his cold, pale lips,
For I know he'll never kiss mine.
5 "The happiest hours I ever spent
Were by George Collins' side;
The saddest news I ever heard
Was that George Collins had died.
6 "O, don't you see the turtle dove,
As he flies from pine to pine?
He weeps, he moans for his own true love,
Just as I wept for mine."