Loving Henry- Ray (Tenn.) 1917 Sharp MS
[My title. From Bronson TTCB, 1962; No. 41, taken from Sharp's MS. There's a stanza missing between 6 and 7 that shows the parrot witnessing the crime:
12 Then up jumped a pretty little bird
And sit upon a briar,
" Go horn€, go home, false lady," it said,
"And pay your maids their hire." [Jane Gentry- Sharp A]
R. Matteson 2014]
[Loving Henry]- Sung by Miss May Ray of Harrogate, Tenn.; April 25, 1917 Sharp MS
1. "Come in, come in, loving Henry," she said
"Come in and stay hours one, two, three,
For it has been most three long years,
Since I spent one hour with thee."
2. "I can't come in and I won't come in
And stay hours one, two, three,
For there's a little girl in the old eastern land
That I love much better than thee."
3. Then bending over her pillow side
To take the kisses one, two, three,
She held in her hand a little white knife
Which wasn't any more to be.
4. She clasped one hand in his yellow hair,
The other by the feet,
And she plunged him into cold well water
Which was both cold and deep.
5. "Help me out, help me our, my own true love,
Help me out, help me out," cried he,
"For there's not a girl in the old eastern land,
That I love any other than thee."
6. "Lie there, lie there, loving Henry," she cried,
"Lie there till the flesh rots from your bones
And there's a little girl in the old eastern land
Will long for your return."
7. "Fly down, fly down, pretty parrot bird,
Fly down and light on my right knee;
I'll make you a cage of yellow beaten gold,
And doors of an oak tree."
8. "Fly down, fly down and I won't fly down
And light on your right knee,
For you have murdered your own true love,
And I'm sure you would murder me."
9. O if I had a bow and arrow
And it all fixed on springs,[1]
I would let it slip at your cold red breast
As you sir on yonders limb.
10. O if you had a bow and arrow
And it all fixed on springs,
As you would let it slip my cold red breast
I would light on another limb.
1, strings