Oxford Girl- Fred Harris (FL) 1934 Morris
[From Morris, Folksongs of Florida, 1950.
This is the B text the A text is Banks of the Ohio.
R. Matteson 2016]
Oxford Town- Text written down in 1934 from the singing of Fred Harris, age 63, of Monticello, FL.
In the city of Oxford,
I used to live and dwell,
and in the center of that town,
I owned a flour mill.
I fell in love with a pretty girl
With dark and rolling eyes;
I promised I would marry her
If she would never be denied.
I called on her at her sister's house
About eight o'clock one night,
That we might have a little walk
And plan our wedding day.
We walked along and talked along
Till we come to level ground;
I picked me up a hedgewood stick
And knocked the fair maid down.
She fell upon her bending knees
And murder was her cry,
"Willie, my dear, don't murder me here;
I am unprepared to die."
I took her by her golden hair
And drug her around and around
And drug her to the still waters deep
And threw her in to drown.
I turned back to my mother's house
About twelve o'clock that night;
My mother being weary
Woke up in a fright.
"My son, my son, what have you done
To bloody your hands and clothes?"
The answer I gave my mother dear:
"Been bleeding at the nose."
I asked her for a candlelight
To guide myself to bed,
Also for a handkerchief
To bind my aching head.
I rolled and I tumbled,
No rest that I could find;
Nothing but the flames of Hell
Came rolling through my mind.
About ten days later
The Oxford girl was found,
Floating down still water deep
That flowed through Oxford town.
Now they're going to hang me;
Death, I hate to die;
They're going to hang me far, far up,
Between the earth and sky.