Silver Dagger- Tiny Gaunt (VA) 1948 Leach A
[From: MacEdward Leach; The Ballad Book, 1955. His notes follow.
This is a version of the composed ballad, a collected version was published in 1849 in NY in Spirit of the Times as sung by "Sal Jenkins." The original has not been found but it would have been printed around 1810. The B version in the Brown Collection is dated 1838.
A collected version was printed in 1849 and 1850 which contradicts Leach's notes.
R. Mateson 2016]
Leach: “No printed version of this purely American ballad has been found, in spite of its literary touches. It is known widely throughout the South and West. Stanzas drift from it into ‘The Drowsy Sleeper.'”
Silver Dagger- Sung by Mrs. Tiny Gaunt in Rappahannock County, Virginia in 1948.
Young men and maids, pray lend attention
Of these few lines I’m going to write,
Of a youth, no name I’ll mention,
Who courted a damsel, a beauty bright.
When his old parents came to know this,
They strove to part them day and night;
They strove to part him from his jewel,
“She’s poor, she’s poor,” they often cried.
Down on his bended knees he pleaded,
Crying, “Father, mother, pity me!
She is my own, my dearest jewel
What’s this world without her to be?”
She turned her back unto the city
She walked the green fields and meadows around;
She walked unto some fair broad waters
And under a shady grove sat down.
She picked up her silver dagger,
Pierced it through her snow-white breast;
She said these words and gave a stagger;
“Farewell true love! I’m going to rest.”
Her love, being out upon the water,
Chanced to hear her dying groan;
He ran, he ran like one distracted:
“I am ruined, I’m lost, I am left alone.”
She opened her coal-black eyes upon him
Saying, “O true love, you’ve come too late!
But meet me on the old road Zion,
Where all our joys will be complete.”
He picked up the bloody dagger,
Pierced it through his tender heart:
Let this be a sad and woeful warning
To all true lovers that have to part.