Young Collins- Karickhoff (WV) 1940 Boette
[From Singa Hypsy Doodle, by Botte, 1971. This text, one of the rare "Johnny Collins types," resembles the other WV versions by Fogg (Cox) and others.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
Young Collins- Karickhoff (WV) 1940 Boette
1 Young Collins out from his fields one day,
The trees and flowers were in bloom.
Twas there he spied fair Ellen dear, dear
A-washing a white marble tomb.
2 He clasped her round the slender waist
And kissed both her cheeks and her chin;
Till the stars from heaven came tumbling down,
To the spot where Young Collins lay.
3. She screamed, she cried, she changed her mind
She waved her lily-white hand.
"Come here, come here, Young Collins my dear,
Your life is near at hand."
4. He ran, he ran to his own father's house,
Till he came to his father's door,
Saying, "Father, dear father, pray let me in,
O pray let me in once more!"
5 "If I should die this very night,
Which I feel in my mind I will,
Go bury me under the marble white tomb,
At the foot of dear Ellen's green hill."
6 As Ellen was sitting in her own cottage door,
All dressed up in silk so fine,
It was there she saw a casket coming,
As far as her eyes could shine.
7. "Whose casket, whose casket, I see,
who lies in that casket so fine?"
"'Tis young Johnny Collins, a clay cold corpse
who lies in that casket so fine."
8. She ordered the casket to be opened forthwith
and she gazed on his cold clay form
And took the last kiss from his clay cold lips
as oft they had kissed hers before.
9. She ordered the shroud to be brought right there
and trimmed it with lace so fine-
"For today they weep o'er Collin's grave-
tomorrow they'll weep over mine."