Wake Up, Wake Up- (KY) 1907 Pettit/Kittredge
[My shortened title- originally titled "Drowsy Sleeper." From: Ballads and Rhymes from Kentucky by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 20, No. 79 (Oct. - Dec., 1907), pp. 251-277. cf. Fitzhugh Droughon; Sharp. Kittredge's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
The following ballads and rhymes from the mountains of Kentucky were collected recently by Miss Katherine Pettit of Hindman, Knott County, in that State. Miss Pettit has had the kindness to send the material to the Journal for publication.
THE DROWSY SLEEPER
This is an interesting version of a ballad known, in a Nithsdale[1] version, to Allan Cunningham, and given in part in a note to "O, my luve's like a red, red rose" in his edition of Burns (1834), iv, 285. Two stanzas of a Sussex version, with the tune, are printed in the "Journal of the Folk-Song Society," i, 269. There is a Catnach broadside, "The Drowsy Sleeper," which partly corresponds (Harvard College Library, fol. 172 in 25242.2).
1. "Wake up, wake up, you drowsy sleeper,
Wake up, wake up, it's almost day;
How can you bear to sleep and slumber
When your own true love is going away?"
2. "Who's this, who's this at my bedroom window,
Calling so earnestly for me?"
"Lie low, lie low, it's your own true lover;
Awake, arise, and pity me."
3. "O love, go and ask your mother
If my bride you ever can be;
And if she says no, come back and tell me,
It's the very last time I'll trouble thee."
4. "I dare [not] go and ask my mother
If your bride I can ever be;
Go your way and court another,"
She whispered low in her true love's ear.
5. "O love, go and ask your father,
If my bride you ever can be;
If he says no, come back and tell me,
It's the very last time I'll trouble thee."
6. 'I dare [not] go and ask my father,
For he is on his bed of rest,
And in his arms he holds a weapon
To kill the one I love the best."
7. "O, Mary, Mary, loving Mary,[2]
My heart is almost broke for you;
From North Carolina to Pennsylvania
I'll spend my hours and days with you.
8. "I'll move my boat to some other river,
And by its waters I'll sit down;
I'll eat nothing but green willow,
I'll drink nothing but my tears."
9. "Come back, come back, you distracted lover,
Come back, .....
And I'll forsake, I'll forsake father and mother,
Forsake them all and go with you."
1. The version actually is not from Nithsdale, near where Cunningham grew up. It was collected in London while he was living there in 1834. Cunningham said, "An old Nithsdale song seems to have been in the Poet's thoughts when he wrote this exquisite lyric." Where the informant, Martha Crosbie, learned the ballad is unknown.
2. The last three stanzas are related to the Scotch version where there are no suicides. The young man, insulted by the parents rejection, leaves on his ship. She calls after him, "Come back," but it's too late fro he won't return until "the fishes fly and the seas run dry." Stanza 7 should actually be the final stanza in response to teh daughter's invitation to do away with him. Cf Wyman 1916.