The English and Scottish Popular Ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

Newell's Games and Songs of American Children, p. 75, as sung by a little girl in New York: derived, through her mother, from a grandmother born in Ireland.

1

It was on a May, on a midsummer's day,
When it rained, it did rain small;
And little Harry Hughes and his playfellows all
Went out to play the ball.

2

He knocked it up, and he knocked it down,
He knocked it oer and oer;
The very first kick little Harry gave the ball,
He broke the duke's windows all.

3

She came down, the youngest duke's daughter,
She was dressed in green:
‘Come back, come back, my pretty little boy,
And play the ball again.’

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4

‘I wont come back, and I daren't come back,
Without my playfellows all;
And if my mother she should come in,
She'd make it the bloody ball.’

5

She took an apple out of her pocket,
And rolled it along the plain;
Little Harry Hughes picked up the apple,
And sorely rued the day.

6

She takes him by the lily-white hand,
And leads him from hall to hall,
Until she came to a little dark room,
That no one could hear him call.

7

She sat herself on a golden chair,
Him on another close by,
And there's where she pulled out her little penknife,
That was both sharp and fine.

8

Little Harry Hughes had to pray for his soul,
For his days were at an end;
She stuck her penknife in little Harry's heart,
And first the blood came very thick, and then came very thin.

9

She rolled him in a quire of tin,
That was in so many a fold;
She rolled him from that to a little draw-well,
That was fifty fathoms deep.

10

‘Lie there, lie there, little Harry,’ she cried,
‘And God forbid you to swim,
If you be a disgrace to me,
Or to any of my friends.’

11

The day passed by, and the night came on,
And every scholar was home,
And every mother had her own child,
But poor Harry's mother had none.

12

She walked up and down the street,
With a little sally rod in her hand,
And God directed her to the little draw-well,
That was fifty fathoms deep.

13

‘If you be there, little Harry,’ she said,
‘And God forbid you to be,
Speak one word to your own dear mother,
That is looking all over for thee.’

14

‘This I am, dear mother,’ he cried,
‘And lying in great pain,
With a little penknife lying close to my heart,
And the duke's daughter she has me slain.

15

‘Give my blessing to my schoolfellows all,
And tell them to be at the church,
And make my grave both large and deep,
And my coffin of hazel and green birch.

16

‘Put my Bible at my head,
My busker (?) at my feet,
My little prayer-book at my right side,
And sound will be my sleep.’