Three Babes- Nichols (TN) 1933 Cambiaire
[From Eastern Tennessee and Western Virginia Mountain Ballads- Cambiaire, 1934. Cambiaire was a teacher and apparently his students collected these songs and ballads in Tennessee and Virginia.
R. Matteson 2015]
THREE BABES - Supplied by I. E. Nichols; Harrogate, Tennessee. Recited by his mother.
There was a lady and a lady gay
The children she had three;
She sent them away to the North Countree,
To learn the grammar-ee.
They had not been so very long,
Scarcely three months and a day,
Until death, sweet death, came hastening along,
And took these babies away.
"There is a king in Heaven," she said,
"That used to wear a crown,
Please send to me my three little babes
To-night or in the morning soon."
Christmas time was a-drawing near,
The nights being long and lone;
At length she saw her three little babes,
Come running to their own mother's home.
She spread a table cloth both long and wide,
And on it she put bread and wine,
"Come and eat, come and eat, my three little babes,
Come and eat and drink of mine."
"We cannot eat your bread, mother dear,
We cannot drink your wine,
For yonder stands our Saviour dear,
And Him we must obey."
She fixed a bed, in a back, back room,
And on it she put a white sheet,
And over the top spread a golden spread,
That they might better sleep.
"Take it off, take it off," said the eldest one,
"Take it off, take it off," said he;
"For woe unto this wide wicked world
Since pride has been with me."
"Take it off, take it off," said the eldest son
"The chickens will soon crow for day;
For yonder stands our Saviour, dear,
And Him we must obey."