George Collins (My title)- House (NC) 1916 Sharp B
[My title. From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; 1917 Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes; Collected by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
Sharp's notes for No. 22. Giles Collins:
Texts without tunes :—Child, No. 85.
Texts with tunes :—Miss Mason's Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs, p. 46. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, III., 299.
In a note (Journal of the Folk-Song Society, IV, 106), Miss Barbara M. Cra'ster argues that this ballad and Clerk Colvill are complementary or, rather, that they are both descended from a more complete form such as that given in Journal of the Folk-Song Society, iii., 299. In the usual form in which Giles Collins is sung (e.g. the versions given in the text), no reason is given for Giles’s death, and this, of course, robs the song of its point. This omission is supplied in the version above cited, but so far has not been found in any other variant.
George Collins (Giles Collins) Sharp B
1. George Collins came home last Friday night,
And then took sick and died;
His girl sat in the next door side,
A-sewing her silk so fine.
2 And when she heard George Collins was dead
She laid her silk aside,
And fell down on her trembling knee
And wept and mourned and cried.
3 O Mary, O Mary, what makes you weep,
What makes you weep and mourn,
What makes you weep when you ought to be asleep?
O Lord, I've lost a friend.
4 God bless the dove that mourns for love
And flies from pine to pine.
It mourns for the loss of its own true love.
0 why not me for mine?
5 I followed George Collins by day, by day,
I followed him to his grave.
Lay off, lay off those coffin lids
And spread the sheets so fine.
6 Lay off, lay off, those coffin lids
And spread the sheets so fine,
And let me kiss his cold, clay lips,
O Lord, he'll never kiss mine.