"This I am, dear mother," he cried,
"And lying in great pain,
With a little penknife lying close to my heart,
And the duke's daughter she has me slain.
"Give my blessing to my schoolfellows all,
And tell them to be at the church,
And make my grave both large and deep,
And my coffin of hazel and green birch.
"Put my Bible at my head,
My busker[68] (?) at my feet,
My little prayer-book at my right side,
And sound will be my sleep."
No. 19.
Barbara Allen.
In the first quarter of the century, this celebrated ballad was still used in New England as a children's game or dance at evening parties. We have here, perhaps, the latest English survival, in cultivated society, of a practice which had once been universal. It is noteworthy that while, in the town of which we speak,[69] the establishment, at the period alluded to, of a children's dancing-school was bitterly opposed, and the children of "church members" were hardly permitted to attend, no such prohibition applied to amusements like this, which were shared in irrespective of sectarian prejudice, by boys as well as by girls.
Our informant describes the performers as standing in couples, consisting each of a boy and a girl, facing each other. An elderly lady, who was in particular request at children's parties on account of her extensive stock of lore of the sort, sang the ballad, to which the dancers kept time with a slow metrical movement, balancing without any considerable change of place. At the final words, "Barbara Allen," which end every stanza, a courtesy took the place of the usual refrain. The whole performance is described as exceedingly pretty, stately, and decorous. It cannot be doubted that the version of the ballad sung was traditional, but we have not been able to secure it.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] The song exhibits numerous marks of antiquity. "Picks up a pin" was originally, no doubt, "pulls at the pin." The word "garret" here appears to correspond to the Scandinavian "high-loft," the upper part and living-room of an ancient house. The third verse is a very ancient ballad commonplace—