George Collins- Granny Banks (NC) 1913 Perrow/Fish
[From: Sharp Collection- Fish's MS also Songs of the South by E.C. Perrow in Journal of American Folk-Lore: Vol. 28, 1916. Taken from the collection of Miss Edith R. Fish of White Rock. Madison county; one of the items she sent to C. Alphonso Smith in 1915 and which later came to the North Carolina collection with permission to publish.
R. Matteson 2015]
6. GEORGE COLLINS (From North Carolina; mountain whites (Granny Banks); MS. given E. N. Caldwell; 1913.)
George Collins rode home one cold winter night,
George Collins rode home so fine,
George Collins rode home one cold winter night,
He taken[1] sick and died.
A fair young lady in her father's house
A-sewing her silk so fine
And when she heard that George was dead
She threw it down and cried.
"O daughter, don't weep! daughter, don't mourn!
There are more boys than one."
"O mother dear! he has my heart,
And now he's dead and gone."
"The happiest hours I ever spent
Were when I was by his side;
The saddest news I ever heard
Was when George Collins died."
She followed him up, she followed him down;
She followed him to his grave,
And there she fell on her bended knees;
She wept; she mourned; she prayed.
"Unscrew the coffin; lay back the lid;
Roll down the linen so fine;
And let me kiss his cold pale lips,
For I know he will never kiss mine.
"Whenever you hear some lonesome dove
Go flying from pine to pine
A-mourning for its own true-love
As I have mourned for mine."
1. The regular past tense of "take" in the Appalachian Mountains. VOL. X.WIII.— .NO. lo8. — II.