Sweet William- Richards (VA) 1918 Sharp O
[My title. Single stanza with music from: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians I; Sharp/Campbell, 1932 edition, edited by Karpeles. All of Sharp's versions use the generic title, Fair Margaret and Sweet William. Fair Margaret is not the name that is sung, usually it's Lady (Liddy/Lydia) Margaret (Marget/Margret).
Notes from the 1932 edition follow. Extra stanzas from Sharp's MS.
R. Matteson 2014]
No. 20. Fair Margaret and Sweet William.
Texts without tunes: — Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 74. Ashton's Century of Ballads, p. 345. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, No. 7. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 281; xxiii. 381; xxviii. 154; xxx. 303.
Texts with tunes : — Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, i. 117. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 289; iii. 64. Folk-Songs of England, i, No. 14. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, pp. 117 and 118. Kidson's Garland of English Folk Songs, p. 30. ChappelPs Popular Music of the Olden Times, i. 382. C. Sharp's English Folk Songs (Selected Edition), ii. 13. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 65 and 522 (see also further references). Wyman and Brockway's Lonesome Tunes, p. 94. journal of American Folk-Lore, xxxi. 74; xxxv. 340. Musical Quarterly, January 1916. British Ballads from Maine, p. 134. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 221 and 570. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 71.
O. Sweet William. Sung by Mrs. FRANCES RICHARDS at St. Peter's School, Callaway, Va., Aug. 16, 1918
Heptatonic. Dorian.
1. Sweet William arose one May morning
And dressed himself in blue.
Pray tell to me this long, long love
Between little Margret and you.
2. I know nothing of Marget, said he,
Little Marget knows nothing of me,
But by tomorrow at eight o'clock
Little Marget's bride you'll see.
3. She was sitting in her bower window,
Combing back her yellow hair,
And who should step by but Sweet William and his bride,
A-riding by to the church.
4. She throw-ed down her ivory comb,
Dashed back her yellow hair,
And she pitched out at her bower window;
Little Marget was seen no more.
5. When night had passed and day come along
When they all might be asleep,
Sweet William said he dreamed a dream last night
That disturbed his mind very much.
Said he dreamed that he saw his true love's room
A-floating over in blood.
6. Is she in her dining-room,
Or is she in her hall,
Or is she lying on her bed,
Pray tell me not at all?
7. She's neither in her dining-room,
Nor is either in her hall,
But there she lies in her coffin
That sits against the wall.
8. Pull down, pull down, them robing white sheets,
They are made so neat and so fine,
And let me kiss her cold clay lips,
For it's often she's kissed mine.
9. At first he kissed her red rosy cheeks
And then her cherry chin,
And then he kissed her cold clay lips
Where there's no breath within.