Barbara Ellen- McClellan (GA) 1950 Morris C
[From Morris- Folksongs of Florida, 1950; version C. His opening end-notes follow.
This is likely 30 years older at least,
R. Matteson 2015]
BONNY BARBARA ALLEN
(Child, No. 84)
This is Florida's favorite English, Scottish, and American popular ballad. Numerous variants have been recorded.
C. "BARBARA ELLEN." Recorded from the singing of Mrs. C. S. McClellan, High Springs, who learned the song from her mother, a lifelong resident of Starke.
A way low down in London town
Is where I got my learning;
I fell in love with a pretty little girl
Her name was Barbara Ellen.
I co'ted her for seven long years;
She said she would nor marry;
Little Willie went home with a broken heart
Took sick and seemed to be dying.
He wrote her a letter on his death bed;
He wrote it slow and mourning;
So slow she read, so slow she said,
"Go tell him I am coming."
When she got there these words she said,
"Young man, I see you're dying."
He turned his pale face to the wall,
And bursted out a-crying.
He reached her out her lily-white hand,
"Oh, come and tell me howdy,"
"Oh, no, no," she staunchly said,
And she would not go about him'
"Do you remember last Saturday night,
When we were at the tavern'
You gave your hand to the ladies all?"
"My heart to Barbara Ellen."
She started at the Shady Grove,
She heard some birds a-singing.
And every bird did seem to sing,
"Hard-hearted Barbara Ellen."
Oh she looked east and she looked west,
Till she saw the corpse a-coming,
"Please lay him down, please lay him down,
And let me look upon him."
The more she looked the more she wept,
Till she bursted out to crying,
"I once could a saved that young man's life,
And kept him from his dying.
"Oh mama, oh mama, go fix my bed;
Go fix it long and narrow;
Little Willie died with a pure heart,
And I will die for sorrow."