Friday, August 25, 2006

Poetry Friday

Barbara Allen’s Cruelty

In Scarlet town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin’,
Made every youth cry Well-a-way!
Her name was Barbara Allen.

All in the merry month of May,
When green buds they were swellin’,
Young Jemmy Grove on his death-bed lay,
For love of Barbara Allen.

He sent his man in to her then,
To the town where she was dwellin’;
‘O haste and come to my master dear,
If your name be Barbara Allen.’

So slowly, slowly rase she up,
And slowly she came nigh him,
And when she drew the curtain by—
‘Young man, I think you’re dyin’.’

‘O it’s I am sick and very very sick,
And it’s all for Barbara Allen.’—
‘O the better for me ye’se never be,
Tho’ your heart’s blood were a-spillin’!

‘O dinna ye mind, young man,’ says she,
‘When the red wine ye were fillin’,
That ye made the healths go round and round,
And slighted Barbara Allen?’

He turn’d his face unto the wall,
And death was with him dealin’:
‘Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
And be kind to Barbara Allen!’

As she was walking o’er the fields,
She heard the dead-bell knellin’;
And every jow the dead-bell gave
Cried ‘Woe to Barbara Allen.’

‘O mother, mother, make my bed,
O make it saft and narrow:
My love has died for me to-day,
I’ll die for him to-morrow.

‘Farewell,’ she said, ‘ye virgins all,
And shun the fault I fell in:
Henceforth take warning by the fall
Of cruel Barbara Allen.

Links: Another version; wikipedia; the film Songcatcher (it has a great soundtrack, including a version of Barbara Allen, plus Aidan Quinn)

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Bildungsroman (Little Willow) and Emily Dickinson (and since this is going thru my head now I feel compelled to share)

Farm School has an August poem (and it sounds like one that Anne would have loved)

Journey Women and an A.A. Milne poem (but from the Pooh Books, not the Poetry Books)

MotherReader spends some time with the birds (and is very happy to have me back from vacation)

Scholar's Blog and Wordsworth (I love the discipline to be found in old poems)

A Wrung Sponge has a poem for her oldest son, who is leaving for college (congratulations to you both)

Here's to Ewe, A Year in Reading (check out the books she's reviewing, and you'll be a bit more forgiving of my bad pun)

Additions:
Blog From the Windowsill says good-bye to Pluto (poor Pluto, getting downsized! Shouldn't we be taking him out for a drink?)
Susan Taylor Brown has a poem for all of those people who have to have day jobs (which is all of us; where's that lottery ticket?)
Check it Out and poetry from around the world (I'll be checking MPOW to see if they own this collection)
and
Gotta Book originally commemorates Pluto's de-planeting (not in a fib, but just as terse)
and Greg Leitich Smith has no poetry whatsoever, but does have some scientific input into the whole Pluto mess (and it's so cool, what with the Pluto poems, that I had to include his post)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Posted it late last night.
Work Without Hope http://susanwrites.livejournal.com/51264.html

Anonymous said...

I seelcted dome of the poems from This Same Sky, poems from around the world selected by Naomi Shihab Nye.
Happy Reading.

Nancy said...

I once wrote a double dactyl about Emily Dickinson. Are you ready? Are you sure?... (okay, but I'm warning you, it's scary... also, I am not sure I remember the first line right so I threw in the nonsense phrase that sticks in my mind for double dactyls)

Higgledy Piggledy
Emily Dickinson
How does it feel to have
all your poems read?

Unsatisfactory.
Which would you rather be --
Famous and living or
Famous and dead?

Kelly said...

Hey Liz:

I've posted mine too:
http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/2006/08/poetry-friday-late-edition.html

Kelly