Get down, get down, little Henry Lee And stay all night with me You won’t find a girl In this damn world That will compare with me
And the wind did howl And the wind did blow La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee
I can’t get down and I won’t get down And stay all night with thee For the girl I have In that merry green land I love fair better than thee
And the wind did howl And the wind did blow La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee
She leaned herself against a fence Just for a kiss or two And with a little pen-knife Held in her hand Where she plugged him through and through
And the wind did blow And the wind did moan La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee
Come take him by his lily white hands Come take him by his feet And throw him in this deep, deep well It’s more than one hundred feet
And the wind did howl And the wind did blow La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee
Lay there, lay there, little Henry Lee Till the flesh drops from your bones For the girl you have in that merry green land Can wait forever for you to come home And the wind did howl And the wind did blow La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee
La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee La la la la la, la la la la le A little bird lit down on Henry Lee
“The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, and refused to be comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod’s sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened forever, which, heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven.
…The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle; no man could read their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops forever, forever fastens on the dust. She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister Madonna is oftentimes stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven, and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs never clamors, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless.
…But the third sister, who is also the youngest! Hush! whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybèle, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes rising so high might be hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they cannot be hidden; through the treble veil of crape which she wears, the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is the Defier of God. She also is the Mother of Lunacies, and the Suggestress of Suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But. this youngest sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with a tiger’s leaps. She carries no key; for, though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is Mater Tenebrarum, −Our Lady of Darkness.”
-Thomas De Quincey, from Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow, 1821.
