Wake Up, Wake Up- Rhoda Grey (VA) 1918 Sharp F
[My title, from English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians I, 1917 and 1932. Collected by Cecil J. Sharp including tunes contributed by Olive Dame Campbell; Karpeles; ed. The 1932 notes follow.
Similar to English and Scotch versions; broadsides.
R. Matteson 2016]
Texts without tunes:— Gavin Greig's Folk-Song of the North East, i, art. 54.Broadside (no imprint). Journal of American Folk-Lore, xx. 260; xxix. 200.Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 348 (see also further references).
Texts with tunes :—Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, i. 225. Journal of the Folk-Song Society; i. 269; iii. 78. Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 41. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 99 (published also in English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, i. 72, and One Hundred English Folk-Songs, p. 106). Folk-Songs of England, v. 12.Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxv. 282 (tune only); xxx. 338 ; xxxv. 356. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs of Nova Scotia, No. 99. Sturgis and Hughes's Songs from the Hills of Vermont, p. 30.
F. [Wake Up, Wake Up] - Sung by Mrs. RHODA GREY at Montvale, Va., Aug. 3, 1918
Hexatonic (no 6th).
Wake up, wake up, you drowsy sleeper,
Wake up, wake up, for it's almost day;
How can you sleep, you charming creature,
Since you have stolen my heart a way?
2 Hush up, hush up, you'll wake my mother,
And that will be sad news to her;
Go you off and court another,
And whisper low, love, in their ear.
3 I won't, I won't, I won't go off,
For what I say I mean no harm;
I've come to win[1] you from your mother
And rest you in your true love's arms.
4 Hush up, hush up, you'll wake my father,
And that will break him of his night's rest;
He holds a weapon in his right hand
To kill the one that I love best.
5 The sea's so wide I cannot wade it,
Nor neither have I wings to fly ;
I wish I had feet like a sparrow
And wings like a little dove,
I'd fly away off from the hills of sorrow
And light on some low lands of love.
6 Hand me down pen, ink, and paper,
And set me down here for to write;
I'll write a grief[2] which is siley under (sic)
That troubles me both day and night.
7 There sticks an arrow in yons wa';
I wish the same was in my breast;
I'd bid adieu to sin and sorrow,
While my poor soul would be at rest.
1. wean; see Ramsay TTM, 1725.
2. letter of the grief and sorrow [see Belden D]