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Below are the lyrics of "Barbara Allen", as arranged by Dolly Parton. This is the version of the ballad that "The Briar and the Rose" is based on. You can read an excerpt from the book and listen to excerpts from the ballad as sung by Emmy Rossum, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton.

Barbara Allen
Arranged by Dolly Parton

 ‘Twas in the merry month of May
When rosebuds were a swellin’
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
For the love of Barbrie Allen

 He sent his servant to the town
The town where she was dwellin’
Said my master’s sick and he sent for you
If ye name be Barbrie Allen

 Then slowly, slowly she got up
And slowly she went nigh him;
And all she said when she got there,
“Young man I think you’re dyin’.”

Oh, yes I’m sick, I’m very sick
I hear the death wind howling
No better, no better I never shall be
If I can’t have Barbrie Allen
 

I can’t forgive that jealous night
Down at the Lockwood Tavern
You drank and danced with the ladies there
And you slighted Barbrie Allen

 She was on her long way home
She saw the hearse a comin’
Lay down, lay down your corpse of clay
That I may look upon him

The more she looked, the more she moaned
‘Til she fell to the ground in sorrow.
Sweet William died for me today,
I’ll die for him tomorrow.

 They buried her in the old church yard
And William’s grave was nigh her.
On William’s grave there grew a red rose
On Barbara’s grave a briar

They grew and grew up the old church wall
‘Til they could grow no higher
They lapped and tied in a true love knot
The rose wrapped ‘round the briar

 © 1994, Velvet Apple Music
             Nashville, Tennessee
        Used by permission

read an excerpt from the book and listen to excerpts from the ballad
as sung by Emmy Rossum, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton.

To return to the last page you were on, close this window