John Collins- Ervine (WV) pre-1925 Cox E
[From: Folk-Songs of the South- John Harrington Cox, 1925. His notes follow. This is one of three versions of Young Collins/Johnny Collins collected by Cox (A,B, and E).
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, XXXIII, 373 (two stanzas from Georgia). For other American references see Journal, xxx, 317. Add Bulletin, Nos. 6-10.
E. "John Collins." Communicated by Mr. C. R. Bishop, Green Bank, Pocahontas County. Obtained from Miss Valera Ervine.
1 One morning, one morning, one morning in May,
When the flowers were all in bloom,
. . . he spied fair Ellen,
A-washing her marble stone.
2 He caught her around her slender waist,
He kissed both her cheek and her chin,
And the stars of heaven came twinkling down,
The place where Young Collins jumped in.
3 She screamed, she cried, she changed her voice,
She threw up her lily-white hands,
Saying, "Come here, come here, Young Collins, my dear,
Your life is not at an end."
4 He swam, he swam, he swam till he came
To his own father's door,
Saying, "Father, dear father, I pray let me in,
I pray let me in once more.
5 "If I should die this very night,
Which I feel in my mind I will,
Go bury me yonder at the white marble stone,
At the foot of Fair Ellen's green hill."
6 Next morning as she sat at her own cottage door,
All dressed in her silk so fine,
She spied a corpse a-coming,
As bright as her eyes could shine.
7 "Whose coffin, whose coffin, whose coffin," cried she,
"Whose coffin so bright and fine?
'T is Young John Collins' clay cold corpse,
An old true lover of mine."
8 The news went round through Dublin town,
'T was written on Dublin's gate,
That six fair ladies were buried next day,
And it was all for John Collins' sake.
9 She ordered a snow-white sheet to be brought,
Till she trimmed it in laces so fine:
"For to-day it shall wave over Collins' grave,
And to-morrow it shall wave over mine."