To hear my awful sentence there;
And now, dear father, do repent,
And read the holy testament.”
The Sacred Harp ascribes the song to John S. Terry and dates it 1869. Terry was a singing-school teacher of Georgia and later lived in Alabama. The singing-school teacher took for his warning song the ‘Lord Lovel’ tune type that has been used for many secular ballads. Among them are ‘Barbara Allen’, Sharp, i., 195, tune O; ‘Gypsy Laddie’, Sharp, i., 237, tune F; ‘Come all Ye Fair and Tender Ladies’, Sharp, ii., 135, tune P. For other tunes of the same type see ‘[Dulcimer]’ in this collection.
No. 18
[LONE PILGRIM], SOH 256
Hexatonic, mode 3 A (I II III — V VI VII)
I came to the place where the lone pilgrim lay,
And pensively stood by the tomb,
When in a low whisper I heard something say,