Barbara Allen- (NC) c1915 Rawn/ Brown P
[No date given, before 1943. From the Brown Collection; Volume 2, 1952; with music in Part 4 added to Part 2. There are also several additional texts in Part 4. The Brown editors' notes follow. Additional text from Abrams MS.
I assume Miss Isabel Rawn, of the Mount Berry School, Mount Berry, Ga., who wrote that she has collected nine ballads in Georgia, largely from the girl students of her school-- is the same person from NC since she was also associated with the Campbells and several of her collected versions appear in Sharp's EFSSA without credit (the Georgia versions before 1916).
If so, then this version is probably from Georgia. Since no info has been provided, I'm leaving NC as the source state.
R. Matteson 2015]
27. Bonny Barbara Allan (Child 84)
Of all the ballads in the Child collection this is easily the most widely known and sung, both in the old country and in America. Scarcely a single regional gathering of ballads but has it, and it has been published in unnumbered popular songbooks. See BSM 60-1. Mrs. Eckstorm in a letter written in 1940 informed me that she and Barry had satisfied themselves, before Barry's death, that as sung by Mrs. Knipp to the delight of Samuel Pepys in 1666 it was not a stage song at all but a libel on Barbara Villiers and her relations with Charles II; but so far as I know the details of their argument have never been published. The numerous texts in the North Carolina collection may conveniently be grouped according to the setting in three divisions: (1) those that begin in the first person of Barbara's lover (or at least of the narrator), (2) those that begin with a springtime setting, and (3) those that begin with an autumnal setting. Of course those in group 1 may also have either the springtime or the autumnal setting. The rose-and-brier ending is likely to be attached to any of the texts. The lover's bequests to Barbara, a feature not infrequent in modern British versions but unusual in America, appears once in the North Carolina texts, in F. The first person of the lover commonly is dropped after the opening stanza, but in F it holds through four stanzas. Not all of the texts are given in full.
P. 'Barbara Allen.' From the ballad collection of Miss Isabel Rawn (afterwards Mrs. T. L. Perry), sent to Dr. Brown probably in 1915.
1. One morning, one morning in the month of May,
The flowers they were blooming.
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barb'ra Allen.
2. He sent his servant to the town
Where Barb'ra was a-dwelling:
'My master sent me here for you,
If this be Barb'ra Allen.'
3 Slowly, slowly she rose up
And slowly she went to him.
The very first words that she did say:
'Young man, I think you are dying.'
4 'Oh yes, oh yes, I am very bad off,
But one sweet kiss will save me.
Just one sweet kiss from the rose-red lips
Of my dear Barb'ra Allen.'
5 'Young man, young man, you are very bad off,
And, yes, perhaps you are dying;
But you cannot have the kiss you want.
The one from Barb'ra Allen.'
6 He turned his pale face to the wall
And turned his back upon her.
'Farewell, farewell to this old world.
And adieu to Barb'ra Allen.'
7 Slowly, slowly she rose up
And slowly she went from him.
She had not gone but a very short way
Till she heard the death-bells ringing.
8 She looked to the east and she looked to the west;
She saw his pale corpse coming.
She covered her face with her two white hands
And rushed home to her mother.
9 'Oh, mother, go and fix my bed,
Go fix it soft and narrow.
Sweet William died for me today,
And I will die for him tomorrow.'
10 Sweet William was buried in the old churchyard
And Barb'ra buried beside him.
And it was out of his grave there grew a red rose
And out of hers a brier.
11 They grew they grew to the old church top
And could not grow no higher.
And there they tied in a true-lovers' knot
With the red rose and the brier.