Say Oh! Beware- James Ashby (MO) 1877 Belden A
[From "Ballads and Songs" edited by H.M. Belden, Missouri Folklore Society, 1940. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
Little Sparrow
This is a fairly stable and apparently American compound of age-old elements. Commonly the forsaken girl begins 'Come all ye fair and tender ladies' and proceeds to compare the fickleness of men to the stars of a summer morning that 'first appear and then are gone' or to a day that starts fair and then turns to rain. Then she wishes she were a little sparrow (sometimes swallow) so that she could, fly to him and nestle against his breast and, unbeknown, hear what he says[1]. This sparrow motif has made its way into another song, the lament of a convict in the state prison (given by Sandburg, ASB 218-9, as known in Ohio), who if he had the wings of a sparrow would fly away to the arms of his mother and there lie down and die. Little Sparrow, under various titles and with considerable variation of texts but with one and generally both of the elements mentioned above, has been reported as traditional song in Virginia (SharpK II 136, J. Fischer & Bro.'s Choral Compositions 6737, SCSII 313), West Virginia (FSS 419-2I), Kentucky (LT 55-7, DD 82-3, FSKII 23-5, SharpK II729,132-5, FSSH 259-60), Tennessee (JAFL XIII, 101-2, ETWVMB 61, 98, SharpK II 128-30, FSSH 258-9,260-1), North Carolina (SharpK II 728, 130, 131, I34, FSSH 257-8), Georgia (JAFL XXIX 200), Mississippi (FSM 167; see also 151), and Indiana (JAFL XXIX 183-4, compounded with matter from The Butcher Boy). See also the last two stanzas of The Rambling Beauty C, above, and stanza 4 of The Blue-Eyed Boy A, below.
A. 'Say Oh! Beware.' From the manuscript ballad-book of James Ashby of Holt County, secured in 1906 by Miss Welty. The MS is dated Aug 6th 1877.
Say oh, beware, ye pretty fair maidens,
Say oh, bewar€e how you love men!
They are like stars of a bright sunny morning,
They appear but soon are gone.
As for myself, I once had a sweetheart,
Indeed I thought he was my own;
He went straight 'way and loved another,
That showed the love he had for me !
He said his heart did burn like fury
Whenever he my face did see.
I told him it was a mere pretension,
He never intended to marry me.
Alas, alas ! it is all over,
And little he thinks on what is past;
In cubit[2] chains was linked to another
For life so long as it may last.
I wish I was a little black bird;
I quickly through this air would fly,
I'd fly straightway to my false-hearted lover
And hear his tale while I would cry.
And hear his tale while I would flutter.
Upon his breast with tender tears.
I would ask him why he once did flatter
And tell so many deceitful lies.
1. In Scotland (Ord 177) the concluding stanza has of The Rambling Beauty weather motif, but no bird.
2. Read, of course, 'Cupid's.'