DO NOT TRUST HIM, GENTLE MAIDEN
Sung by: Emma Puterbaugh Medlin
Recorded on 5/6/62
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There bereft, where willows weep,
There must lie that fair one ever.
Stranger, why those vigils keep?
Why go there alone and early,
All those morning flowers to strew?
Did you love, then, true so dearly,
Do you grieve as others do?
Stranger, I've been thinking sadly
How you promised, wooed and won,
How her innocent love gladly
Heard fair words, built hopes thereon.
Now she's in the cold ground sleeping,
Near the river's morning wave,
And the willows now are weeping
O'er that maiden's early grave.
Warnings from that grave do tell me,
And a living voice I hear,
Of a wooer who would seek me,
Pleading by a love sincere,
That without me life was nothing.
Take this heart and hand of mine,
Promise bliss forever morrow,
Then forsake me, let me pine.
Stranger, I will heed the warning
Coming from the riverside.
Flowers you strew there in the morning,
I'll renew at eveningtide.
There we'll walk, but not together,
For the gypsy tells me true.
Mourns her child in tears that smother
Every kindly thought of you.
Also found in Randolph, Vol. IV, #743, "The Gypsy's Warning."