Lover's Farewell- Wetmore (KY) c. 1940 Niles A
[From the Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles. No date is supplied, this is probably from the 1930s but Niles collected some ballads in the early 1900s. The last two verses tie it somewhat with The Three Ravens. Why Niles categorizes it here is unknown- it certainly has little or nothing to do with Child 26.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
Lover's Farewell- Wetmore (KY) c. 1940 Niles A
1. My lover did ere evensong,
And give me a farewell,
But the wars that took him to the Low Country,
He never a word did tell,
But the wars that took him to the Low Country,
He never a word did tell.
Oh, he did go to the bloody wars,
His lance and his shield a-glisten,
While his lady did weep in her bowing-room,
And none was there to listen.
(repeat last 2 lines of each verse)
Down fell he there, and there to die,
In the wet of the Low Country,
And no man knows that he lies there
But his horse and his hound and his lady Mary.
Oh, he may sleep in an open grave,
Where raven fly and flutter,
But I will wake on my pallet of grief
And many a cry will utter.