Lullaby- Carrie Grover (NS-MA) pre1953
[From A Heritage of Songs, page 24 by Carrie B. Grover; Norwood, Pa., Norwood Editions, 1973 (completed in 1953). Thanks to Julie Mainstone Savas for providing the text. Carrie Grover, a fiddler and singer, was born Carrie Spinney in 1879 and raised in Black River, where she lived until the age of 12. The family then settled in Gorham, Maine. Assuming the text came from her parents it would date back to at least the 1870s in Nova Scotia.
The first stanza is common in the core Died for Love songs and ballads while the second is an end stanza that is found in versions of the "Sailor's Bride" or "The Sailor and His Bride" (for a Canadian version see Songs of the North Woods, p. 2). The ending stanza is typically:
I wish that I was sleeping, too,
Beneath the waves of the ocean blue,
My soul to God, and my body in the sea,
The broad waves rolling over me.
The form of Grover's song is also taken from the "Sailor's Bride";
Long years ago when I was young,
The flowers they bloomed and the birds they sung.
A sailor lad and his lovely bride
Were weeping by the ocean side.
Tra-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
Tra-la-la, la-la-la-la.
A sailor lad and his lovely bride
Were weeping by the ocean side.
R. Matteson 2017]
Lullaby- as sung by Carrie Grover
I wish to God my child was born
and sitting on its dada's knee
while I poor girl was in my grave,
and the tall green grass growing over me
la la la and la la lee
La la la la la lee low
while I poor girl was in my grave
and the tall green grass growing over me.
. . . .
I wish I was in the bottom of the sea
my soul to God, my body in the sea
and the dark blue waves rolling over me
La la la la la lee
la la la la lee low
My soul to God and my body in the sea
and the dark blue waves rolling over me.