Love Henry- Hilton (MO) pre1939 McDonald
[From Grant McDonald, “A Study of Selected Folk-Songs of Southern Missouri” (master's thesis, University of Iowa, 1939) p. 20; Also in Bronson TTCB, No. 17.
R. Matteson 2014]
"Love Henry." Sung by John Hilton, Spokane, Mo., from fifty years of Missouri recollection.
Stop, oh stop, Love Henry she said, and stay all night with me
Oh I can't stop and stay all night with thee;
For that pretty little girl in Gospel Land
Is looking for me this night.
He stooped o'er to give her kisses three,
With a little pen knife in her lily white hand
She wounded him so free, with a little pen knife
She wounded him so free.
"Live, oh live, Love Henry," she said.
"I can't live nor I won't live, for don't you see,
My own heart's blood flowing down so free,
My own heatr's blood flowing down so free?"
One taken him by the yellow hair and the other by the feet,
They plunged him into the well water.
Into the water both cold and deep,
Into the water both cold and deep.
"Lay there, lay there, Love Henry," she said,
"Till the flesh rots off your bones.
That pretty little girl in Gospel Land may mourn for you tonight
That pretty little girl in Gospel Land may mourn for you tonight."
"Fly down, fly down, pretty parrot," she said,
"And light on my right knee."
"I can't fly down and I shan't fly down and light on your
For you've just murdered your Love Henry knee,
And soon would murder me."
"I wish I had a cedar bow, likewise a silken string,
I would shoot a dart right through your heart
So that you would no longer sing,
So that you would no longer sing."