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122 Ballads and Songs of Michigan
39 THE FOOT OF THE MOUNTAIN BOW
For slighdy longer texts of this song see Mackenzie, pp. 124-125, and Greenleaf and Mansfield, pp. 153-154.
The present version was sung in 1934 by Mr. Chauncey Leach, Kalkaska, who learned the song about 1895 in Dempsey's lumber camp, fifteen miles east of Kalkaska.
1 Come all ye men and maidens and listen to my song,
111 now repeat a verse or two, and it will not take me long.
It's all about a young man I'm going to tell you now
Who has lately became a member of the maid of mountain bow.
2 "O Sally, dearest Sally, it's go along with me; We'll go down yonder and married we will be.
We will join our hand in wedlock band; there's nothing in our
way. We will join our hand in wedlock band, for sweetly they do
play. |
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"O look down in yonder valley my crops does gently grow, Look down in yonder valley, my horses and my plow; They are laboring late and early for the maid of the mountain bow."
4 "If they're laboring late and early, that is not for me. I hear of your bad income, it is so the people say; And you rap, and you call, and you pay for hoi,1 And get drunk at the break of day."
5 "If I rap and I call and I pay for hoi, my money it is my own; I spend my own fortune, and I hear that you have none.
You thought you had my poor heart broke for happening on
you now, But I leave you as I found you at the foot of the mountain bow."
6 "O Johnny, dear Johnny, how can you be unkind?
The girl you loved so dearly, how soon you changed your mind. The girl you loved so dearly for happening on you now, And you leave me brokenhearted at the foot of the mountain bow."
1 An abbreviation of "alcohol."—Mr. Leach. |
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