Our Singing Country

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Our Singing Country
WILLY REILLY
d to c. No. 1008. Capt. P. R. Nye, Akron, Ohio, 1937. See Gr, p. 1845 Cox, p. 3365 Cr, p. 152; Be, p. 289.
"This was a favorite for a gathering on our boat in my childhood youth. My farents sang it times without number on request^ along with many others."                                —Captain Pearl R. Nye, of the Ohio Canal.
The fullest American version of this Irish ballad appears, fifty-seven stanzas long, in Helen Creighton's Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia. It was often printed in songsters in the early part of the nineteenth century.
1 "Oh, rise up, Willy Reilly, and come along with me, I mean to go with you and leave this coun-ter-ee, To leave my father's dwelling place, his houses and free land,* And away goes Willy Reilly and his dear Colleen Bawn.
2 They go by hill and mountain and by yon lonesome plain, Through shady groves and valleys, all dangers to refrain 3 But her father followed after with a well armed band, And taken was poor Reilly and his dear Colleen. Bawn!
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