The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-12

o whitherr she cried, 'dost thou wander,
my lover,
o. where doSt thou Welter and bleed on the
shore?
Or that Scottish ballad of a later time, in
which a shipwrecked lover, Sandy" so
dear to the Caledonian heart, appears by
the couch of a typical Mary in the silent
watches of the night, when
1.-THE moon had climbed the highest hill
That rises DER the source of Dee,
And from her eastern summit shed
Her SllVery light Ger tower ana Tree -
to be the first to bring the sorrowful tidings
of shipwreck and parting.
Three stormy nights and stormy days
We tossed upon the raging sea;
The ship went down, and I'm at rest,
So, Mary, weep no more for me-
had vogue in many an early Indiana and
Ohio settlement almost equal to that which
it enjoyed, in common with "Annie Laurie, :"
in the English trenches before Sebastopol,
where many Highland laddie' and stall
wart Briton sang his soul away to some
waiting and watching Mary whom he was
never to behold again with his mortal eyes.
But this class of songs, borrowed from
older and more cultured centers of civiliza-
ton, was not so characteristic of the tastes
and affections of the uneducated masses
among the busy people who cleared the first
farms, built the cabins and opened the high
ways, as were those that were passed from
hand to hand in manuscript and few of
which ever reached the dignity conferred
by cold type and printers ink Many an
old citizen can recall the mournful ballads
of a certain "Sir William and his be-
trothed, who, being baked in marriage,
died "all for love-" but were permitted to
be buried side by side in the kirk yard,
when out of her grave
There grew a red red rose,
And out of his a brier, Ter Ter;
And they grew and grew to the steeple top,
Till they couldn't grow any higher, Ter Ter,
And there they tied in a true love Knot, etc.
One of the most favored of these old walls
rehearses the cruelty of one Barbara Ell
len" to britte-hearted Johnnie of which
one version began:
"Twas in the merry month of May
When green tree buds were swelln
That Johnnie on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbara Ellen
Another related the sad experience of a
"fayre maiden who, parted from her lover,
moaned to every passing breeze that
1.-The lowlands of Hollands
Between my love and ]"
1t was somewhat in the same vein that
the Ballad of Peter Gray eXhorted the
morning zephyrs to repeat his sad story,
beseeching them in fearful refrain of
20 blow we winds OF morning!
Blow, blow, blow!
OF the class that survived only in the
memories of the singers or on the pages of
manuscripts, soiled by much handling, it
would be impossible to quote from or even
catalogue one in a hundred They included
monodies for valiant Lowers" slain in
battle, from "Roncesvalle's bloody field
down to the latest skirmish with the In
dams, tales of shpwrecks, Indian captivi-
ties and tortures, of faithful lovers" part
ed by disease and death or obdurate pa
rents. One of the latter class was the rela-
ton by a Torn lovyer' of how his af-
famed died of consumption. 1t opens with
cooling dove that recalled sorrow:
"Once, while in a lonesome grove,
Sat DER my head a little dove
And for its mate began 10 COO,
Which made me think of my love, too.
Then, after comparing the birds condi-
ton to his own, he proceeds to tell how
Consumption seized her lungs, severe,
Which preyed on her for one long year,
TILL just before the inevitable tragedy was
completed,
''She says to me. my dearest friend,
Be good and faithful to the end.
pale. sheeted ghosts" walked and talked
through many of these old ballads. a
melancholy song of shipwreck, wed to a
chorus of ira, la la. las started out with
this predatory stanza:
"A story now / will relate
That happened in my early state
OF a sailor lad whose heart was true
) But now lies meath the ocean blue.
Ira. la. la. la: ira la. la, lay