The Drowsy Sleeper- John Raese (WV) 1880 Cox A
[From: John Harrington Cox's "Folk-Songs of the South" #108A; 1925. His notes follow. Both Belden and Cox have separate categories for Drowsy Sleeper and Silver Dagger.
The suicide is quite different and is found similarly in "Awake, Awake" in James Ashby's MS from Missouri in 1874 (Belden C).
R. Matteson 2016]
108 THE DROWSY SLEEPER
Two variants of this song have been recovered in West Virginia, one having the title, "The Silver Dagger," probably because the last two stanzas of it belong to that song (see p. 350, below). "The Drowsy Sleeper" an interesting variant of a song known, in a Nithsdale version, to Allan Cunningham, and given in part in a note to "0, my hive's like a red, red rose" in his edition of Burns, 1834, iv, 285 (Kittredge, Journal, xx, 260).
For American texts see Journal, xx, 260 (Kentucky), xxix, 200 (Georgia); xxx, 338 (Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska or Utah) ; xxxv, 356 (Ohio) ; Belden, Herrig's Archiv, cxix, 430 (Missouri, Arkansas) : Campbell and Sharp, No. 47 (North Carolina); Sturgis and Hughes, Songs from the Hills of Vermont, p. 30; Pound, No. 21 (A, Nebraska; B, thesame as Journal, xxx, 342); Sharp, Folk-Songs of English Origin Collected in the Appalachian Mountains, 2d Series, p. 48; Minish MS., 11, 63 (North Carolina); broadside, H. J. Wehman (New York), No. 518 (mixed with "The Silver Dagger").
For English and Scottish references see Journal, xx, 260; xxx, 338; xxxv, 356; Campbell and Sharp, p. 330. See also the Hudson MS. of Irish airs, Volume 1, No. 181 (Boston Public Library).
There is an extremely interesting paper on " English Songs on the Night Visit," by Baskervill, in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, xxxvi, 565-614 (see p. 585 for the present piece).
A. "The Drowsy Sleeper." Communicated by Miss Violet Noland, Davis, Tucker County, March 24, 1916; obtained from Mr. John Raese, who learned it when a boy and wrote it down in 1880.
1 "Rouse up, rouse up, you drowsy sleeper;
Rouse up, 't is almost day;
Open your doors, let down your window,
What your true love has to say."
2 "Go away from my window, you'll waken my mother;
This thing you call courting, she does despise;
Go way, go way, and court some other,
For what I say, I mean no harm."
3 "I won't go way nor court no other,
For you are the one that I love best;
For you are the one that I love dearly,
And in your arms I hope to rest."
4 "Go way from my window, you'll waken my father,
Who is taking of his rest;
For under his pillow there lies a weapon,
To kill the one that I love best."
5 "Down in yon meadow there lies a sharp arrow;
I'll draw it across my peaceful breast;
It will cut off all love and sorrow,
And send my peaceful soul to rest."