Little Sparrow- J. W. Miller (NC) 1907 Brown A
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Volume III, c. 1954. Brown notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
254. Little Sparrow
This lyric of the lovelorn is a favorite in the Southern mountains. See BSM 477 and add to the references there given Virginia (FSV 80-1). Florida (SFLQ viii 172-3), Missouri (OFS I 315-17), and Indiana (SFLQ in 205, BSI 328). It is often called 'Come all you fair and tender ladies,' from its opening line. It is distinguished from other songs of a like spirit, such as 'The Inconstant Lover,' by the image of the bird and, generally, by the likening of love to a fair dawn that turns into bad weather. One of the following texts is marked by a trace — rare in American tradition — of the old English 'Seeds of Love' songs [1].
A. 'The Little Sparrow.' Contributed by J. W. Miller of Lincoln county as "sung by a woman in 1907."
1. Come all ye fairer tender ladies.
Take warning how you love young men;
For they're like a star in the summer morning.
They are here but soon are gone again.
2 For once I had an untrue lover
Which I claimed to be my own.
He went right away and loved another,
Leaving me to weep alone.
3 If I had known before I loved him
That his love was false to me
T would have locked my heart with a key of golden
And pinned it there with a silver pin[2].
4 Oh, if I were a little sparrow
And I had wings to fly,
I'd f\y right away to my true love's window,
I'd listen what he told.
5 I hit then as it is I'm no little sparrow.
Neither have I wings to fly.
So I'll sit right down in my grief and sorrow,
I'll sit here till I die.
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1. from Wheel of Fortune.
2. Found in both Wheel of Fortune and Silver Pin