Barbara Allen

Michaelmas day been in the year
When the green leaves they were falling
When young Johnny Rose from the North country
Fell in love with Barbara Lynn
He sent his servants out one day
To see if she was coming
One word from you will bring me to
If you be Barbara Lynn

Get up, get up, her mama said
Get up and go and see him
Oh mama 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
Oh dada dear, do you not mind the time
When 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 me to
If you be Barbara Lynn

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 find them lying
Bloody sheets and bloody shirts
I sweat for Barbara Lynn

Look at my bed head, he said
And there you'll find it taken

My gold watch and my gold chain
I bestow them to you, Allen

As she went over her father's green
She heard the dead bell ringing
And every chap the dead bell give
It was woe to Barbara Lynn

As she went over her father's hall
She saw the corpse a-coming
Lay down, lay down those weary corpse
Till I get looking on them
They lifted the lid up off the corpse
She bursted out with laughing
And all his wearied friends around
Cried hard-hearted Barbara Lynn

As she went into her mother's house
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 they remain forever