The Orphan Girl- Lucien McDowell
[Meade's earliest printed version is: 'Delaney's Songbook #15; 'Glory Songs' (1909), #165 credits T.B. Mosely'. [Delaney's Songbook, #1-88, NYC, Wm W. Delaney, 1892-1921]. Meade also references Belden - 'Ballads and Songs Collected By the Folk-Lore Society of Missouri' Columbia, Mo: University of Missouri Studies, Vol XV, #1 1940; reprinted 1955, 1966 - and notes that, at page 277, oral evidence is provided that the song dates to the 1850s.
R. Matteson 2014]
THE ORPHAN GIRL
1. "No home, now home," said a little girl,
At the door of a princes hall;
As she feebly stood on the marble step,
And leaned on the polished wall.
2. "My father, alas, I never knew,"
And the tears dimmed her eyes so bright:
"My mother sleeps in a new-made grave
'Tis an orphan that begs tonight."
3. Her clothes were thin and her feet were bare
The snow had covered her head.
"On, give me a home," she feebly cried,
"Just, a home and a bite of bread."
4. The night was dark and the snow fell fast,
As the rich man closed his door;
His proud lips curled with scorn as he said,
"No room or bread for the poor."
5. "I must freeze," she said as she sank on the step,
And strove to cover her feet,
Her tattered dress was covered over - -
Covered o'er with snow and sleet.
6. Midnight came as the night rolled on
Rolled on like a funeral knell;
The earth seemed wrapped in a winding-sheet,
And the drifting snow still fell.
7. The rich man lay on a velvet couch
And counted his silver and gold;
While the poor girl lay in a bed of snow,
And murmured "So cold so cold!"
8. The morning dawned and the orphan girl
Still lay at the rich man's door;
But her soul had fled to its home above
Where there's room and bread for the poor.
Remembered by L.L.McDowell from the singing, of his mother, Mary Rascoe McDowell, who sang !t to him in his childhood about 1890. Remembered also by Mrs. L. L. McDowell from the slnglrg of her mother Catharlne Parker Lassiter at nearly the same date. The two remember the melody the same or as above. The text of combined memories, however, reproduce only about half the above words , the remalnder belng glven to them on August, 1, 1966, by Charles P. Burgess of Silver Point, Tennessee. Sllver Polnt, is just across the Caney Fork Rlver from Smithville. Mr. Burgess does not remembor where he learned the song, whlch he wrote down from memory.