Lady Gay- (KY) c. 1914 McGill
[From Folk-songs of the Kentucky Mountains by Josephine McGill; 1917 w/music. These songs were collected by McGill in the Hindeman, Knott County area during the summers of 1914 and 1915. McGill was from Louisville KY.
McGill's version was covered by Andrew Rowan Summers on Columbia recording No. M408-8 (WCo 26447).
R. Matteson 2015]
LADY GAY.
There was a lady, a lady gay,
Of children she had three;
She sent them away to the north countrie
To learn high gramarye.
They had been gone but a very little while,
Scarcelie three weeks to a day;
When death, cold death came hasting along,
And stole those babes away.
"If there is a King in heaven," she said,
"That wears the brightest crown,
Play send to me my three little babes
Tonight or in the morning soon."
It was just about old Christmas time,
The nights being cold and clear;
She looked and saw her three little babes
Come running home to her.
She set a table both long and wide,
Put on it bread and wine;
"Come eat and drink, my three little babes,
Come eat and drink of mine."
"We do not want your bread, mother,
We do not want your wine;
For yonder stands our Saviour dear,
To Him we must resign."
She fixed a bed in the long back room,
Spread over it fine sheets,
And covered it with a cloth of gold,
That the sounder her babes might sleep.
Up rose the oldest one in the bed,
"The cock's a-crowing for day;
We're going never to come back again,
Away, and away, and away.
Green grass grows over our heads, mother,
Cold clay is under our feet;
And ev'ry tear that you shed for us
It wets our winding sheet."