George Promer- Stewart (MS) pre-1926 Hudson C
[From: Ballads and Songs from Mississippi by Arthur Palmer Hudson; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 152 (Apr. - Jun., 1926), pp. 93-194. Hudson's notes follow. This is one of three versions published in the JAF in 1926. An additional version was published in Folksongs of Mississippi in 1936.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
5. LADY ALICE.
(Child, No. 85.)
Three texts. For other texts from the South, see Cox, No. 17; Campbell
and Sharp, No. 22; Reed Smith, pp, 117-118.
C. "George Promer." Communicated by Miss Annie Laurie Roberts, who obtained it from Frankie Stewart, a pupil in the Pearl River Agricultural High School, Poplarville, Mississippi.
1. George Promer rode out one cold winter night,
George Promer rode out so fine,
George Promer rode out one cold winter night,
And he took sick and died.
2. And when they carried Little Annie word,
She was folding her linen so fine,
And when she heard that George was dead,
She laid her linen aside.
3. She followed him up, she followed him down,
She followed him to his grave,
And there she knelt upon her knees,
She wept, she mourned, she prayed.
4. "Lift up the coffin, take off the lid,
Lay back the silk so fine,
And let me kiss his fair cold lips,
For I am sure he'll never kiss mine."
5. "O Annie, dear Annie, why do you weep?
George is not the only boy."
"O mother, dear mother, the only boy
I ever loved is dead."