Title
Little Rosewood Casket, Lyric Variant 03
Description
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.
Alternative Title
Rosewood Casket, A Package of Old Letters, The Rose-Bud Casket, There's a Rosewood Casket, Little Rosebud Casket
Publisher
W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University
Contributor
Greer, I. G. (Isaac Garfield), 1881-1967
Transcription
The Little Rosewood Casket
There’s a little rosewood casket
Sitting on a marble stand
With a package of love letters
Written by my true love’s hand
Go and bring them to me, brother
Come and sit upon my bed
Lay your head upon my pillow
While my ching heart grows dead.
Read them gently to me brother,
Read them till I fall asleep,
Asleep to wake with Jesus,
Dear brother do not weep.
Last Sunday I saw him anodding
With a lady by his side,
And I thot I heard him tell her
I could never be his brdie.
He is coming up the pathway
Brother meet him at the door
Tell him that I will forgive him
If he’ll court that girl no more
When I’m dead and in my coffin
And my friends are gathered round
And my narrow grave is ready
In some lonesome church yard gorund
Take this package of old letters
Strew them all around my heart
But this little ring he gave me
From my finger never part.
There’s a little rosewood casket
Sitting on a marble stand
With a package of old letters
Written by my true love’s hand.
Mary Linda Vardell
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