Parents Warning- Ruby Vass (VA) 1912 MS Shellans
[From: Folk Songs of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Herbert Shellans, 1968.
This is very close to the 1850 print version, the last stanzas is original.
R. Matteson 2016]
Parents Warning- taken from her fathers notebook, MS dated 1912. Sung by Ruby Vass of Hillsville, Virginia in 1959.
Young men and maids, pray lend your attention
To these few lines I mean to write
About a young man who I'll make mention,
Who hereby courted a beauty bright.
But when his parents came to know it,
They strove with him both night and day
To part a man from his own like jewel,
As she is poor, as you've oft heard say.
Then on his bended knees he falled,
Sayin', "Parents, parents pity me.
Don't let my true love be denied;
What's this whole world without she to me?"
When this young woman came to know it,
She walked, she groaned, both to and fro.
''My true love weeps and heaves in spirit,
And to whither now shall I go?"
She went down to yonder flowin' river
And sat down under a shady tree.
She cried and said, "Oh shall I ever,
Evermore my true love see?"
She picked up a silver dagger
And pierced it through her tender breast.
These words she uttered as she staggered,
"Farewell vain world, I'm goin' to rest."
And him a-bein' down in the valley,
A-hearin' of her mournful voice,
I{e ran, he ran like one distracted,
Sayin', "Oh true love, I feel quite lost."
And then her eyes like stars she opened.
Sayin', "Oh true love, you've come too late.
Prepare and meet me on Mount Zion
Where all things there shall be complete."
He picked up this bloody weapon
And pierced it through his tender heart,
Sayin', "Let this be a warnin' taken
To all that doth true lovers part."
A double coffin was directed,
To which these two true lovers were laid;
They were laid in the arms of each other,
And then were laid in the silent grave.