BARBARA ALLEN
Michaelmas Day being a day in the year
When the green leaves, they were falling
Young Johnny Grove from the north country
Fell in love with Barbara Allen
He sent his servants out one day
To see if she was coming
"One word from you would bring to me
If you be Barbara Allen"
"Get up, get up," her mother said
"Get up and go and see him"
"O mamma dear, do you not mind the time
That you told me how to shun him?"
"Get up, get up," her father said
"Get up and go and see him"
O father dear, do you not mind the time
That you told me how to slight him?"
Slowly, slowly, she got up
And slowly she put on her
And slowly went to his bedside
And slowly looked upon him
"You're lying low young man" she said
"And almost near a dying"
"One word from you will bring to me
If you be Barbara Allen"
"One word from me, you never will get
Nor any young man breathing
For the better of me, you never will be
If your heart's blood was a spilling"
"Look at my bed foot" he said
"And there you'll see them lying
Bloody sheets and bloody shirts
That I swear for Barbara Allen"
"Look at my bed head" he said
"And there you'll find it ticking
My gold watch and my gold chain
I bestow to Barbara Allen"
As she went over her father's hall
She heard the dead bell ringing
And every chop the dead bell gave
It was woe to Barbara Allen
As she went over her father's green
She saw his corpse a coming
"Lay down, lay down that weary corpse
'Til I get looking on him"
They lifted the lid up off the corpse
She bursted out with laughing
And all his wearied friends around
Cried "Hard hearted Barbara Allen"
She went into her father's house
Saying "Make my bed long and narrow
For the dead bell did ring for my true love today
It will ring for me tomorrow"
Out of one grave there grew a red rose
And out of the other a briar
And they both twisted into a true lover's knot
And there remained forever
- Learned from Sarah Makem
In Keady
Summer of 1966