I'll Hang My Harp on a Willow Tree, Lyric Variant 01

This item is part of the I. G. Greer Folksong Collection which consists of more than 300 individual song titles and their variants as collected by Isaac Garfield Greer (1881-1967) from informants, primarily in Ashe, Wilkes and Watauga counties. The collection includes manuscripts, typescript transcriptions produced by Dr. Greer’s clerical staff, and handwritten musical notations. Songs range from traditional Child Ballads, traditional English and Scottish ballads as well as their American variants, to 19th century popular music to musical compositions of local origin.

Popular music--Great Britain

Folk songs--United States

Unrequited love--Songs and music

Crusades--Songs and music

The Saracen

Bayly, Thomas Haynes, 1797-1839

AC.113 Isaac Garfield (I.G.) Greer Papers and Recordings

W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University

Greer, I. G. (Isaac Garfield), 1881-1967

PDF

English

Text

Harp On the Willow Tree

I’ll hang my harp on the Willow Tree
And off to the wars again,
For my peaceful home
Has no charm for me
Nor the battle field no pain.

Chorus

I’ll laugh and sing
Tho’ my heart may break.
I’ll flush my pale cheeks with wine,
And if I survive it
I’ll mount my steed, and off to the
wars again
For my peaceful home
Haz no charm for me
Nor the battle field no pain.

For the lady I love will soon be
a bride
With a diadem on her brow
Oh! why did she flatter my boyish pride
She’s going to leave me now
She seem to think me a beau ideal
Tho’ my parents were of low degree
Oh! had I but loved with a boyish love
It would have been better for me

Chorus

She took me away from my warlike Lord
And gave me a silken suit
I thought no more of my Masterz sword
Az I played on my lady’s flute
One golden tress of her hair I’ll twine
In my helmet sabre sword
And then on the fields of Palestine
I’ll seek an early doom
And if by the Sarycenz hand I fall
Mid the noble and the brave
A tear from my lady love is all
I last for a warrerz grave

Chorus

1830

Brown, Folk Lyric - 259

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