Low River Shore- Marston (ME) 1931 Barry BFSSNE
[From BFSSNE, 1931 with notes by Phillips Barry. It may have been this article by Barry that first pointed out the similarity of this ballad with Erlinton (also Earl Brand) and "The Soldier's Wooing" (Bold Soldier). Then in 1946 Randolph categorized two "Shore" versions under Valiant Soldier. Barry's notes follow.
This version may be considerable older than 1931. In 1926, the informant Mrs. Annie V. Marston, of West Gouldsboro, wrote of the similar ballad Bold Soldier, "I learned this song more than sixty years ago, hearing my brothers sing it." She did not say that about Low River Shore but it could date back to the 1860s also.
From BFSSNE No. 3, 1931; Notes and Queries, comes an additional verse:
1. Mrs. Annie V. Marston has sent in an additional stanza of The Low River Shore (FSSNE, Bulletin, 2, pp. 8-9), which in the text should follow stanza 3:
"But her cruel old father, he did me ensnare,
He sent me away where loud cannons did roar;
Where there's nothing but torment for me to endure,
Since I left my own true love by the Low River Shore."
R. Matteson 2014]
Barry: The "hole in the ballad" may be neatly patched with a stanza from a text printed by Frank Moore in Anecdotes, Poetry and, Incidents of the War, 1866, pp. 180-81, as found among the papers of a Confederate soldier in Boonville, Missouri:
as Son as her old father, tis same came to hear,
River he Swar he wood de Prive Me of my derest der,
He rased him a army fooul twenty or Moar
to fite a yong Soalger on the new river Shoar.
Excluding stanzas 1 and 7, which belong elsewhere, "The Low River Shore" is a ballad with a theme akin to that on which "Erlinton" (Child 8), and its secondary form, "The Soldier's Wooing," are based. Stanza 7, as Mackenzie has noted, (Ballads and Sea Songs, p. 137) is from a stage song of 1734, but the sentiment is at least as old as the "Tereus" of Sophocles, acted in 416 B.C. The Missouri text concludes with the lines:
they hav children to Squall an husban to scold,
Makes Many yong lases look Wethered and old.
P. B.
THE LOW RIVER SHORE - From Mrs. Annie V. Marston, West Gouldsboro, Maine. 1931
1. Oh, I can live life, love, or I can live long,
I can court an old sweetheart till a new one comes along;
I can hug, I can kiss them, I can make their hearts kind,
And when my back is to them, I can then change my mind.
2, It was down in yonder lowlands, where the wild waters flow,
Where the wild roses blossom and the wild winds do blow;
It was there I met a fair maid whom my heart did adore,
As she was a-walking by the Low River Shore.
3 I said, "My pretty fair maid, can you fancy me?
My portion is small." "That is nothing," said she;
"'Tis your beauty I fancy; I can ask for nothing more,
Than to gain your affection by the Low River Shore."
4. "But her cruel old father, he did me ensnare,
He sent me away where loud cannons did roar;
Where there's nothing but torment for me to endure,
Since I left my own true love by the Low River Shore."
5 She wrote me a letter of the pastimes we had spent,
In the middle of this letter, a few lines she sent;
Saying, "Come back, my own true love, for ever, ever more,
And I will go with you to the Low River Shore,"
6. In reading this letter, it made my heart sad,
No instrument of music could make me feel glad,
. . .
. . .
7. I took out my broadsword and it glittered around,
Till at length I had seven lying dead on the ground;
Some bleeding, some dying, some wounded full sore,
And there I gained my true love by the Low River Shore.
8. How hard is the fortune of all female kind,
They are always in fetters, they are always confined;
Bound down by their parents until they are made wives,
Then they are slaves to their husbands all the rest of their lives.