Washer at the Ford - Argyle Goolsby

Stranger, don’t be afraid

I am in no shape to do you harm

Though frightened you surely are by me

Grant me a moments bended knee

Dismiss this blood spray on my clothes

I can assure you it’s my own

Though I lay bearing no cruel wound

The witch on the ford surely sealed my doom

Oh God, I think I’m marked

Stranger, lend me your ear

Hear these last words of a dying man

I testify a great misdeed

My true love’s heart I have aggrieved

I broke off for another belle

She conjured up vengeance, she conjured up hell

She put that webbed witch there square in my path

Soaking my clothes with the blood of the past

From round' yonder bend she came closing in

The shadowy Washer at the Ford

Jacklights were her eyes, foretelling demise

The flickering Washer at the Ford

Now I know I’m marked

Stranger, could it be we’ve met some place before?

You bear resemblance to my lover whom I’ve recent scorned

«Yes fallen friend, we did acquaint once on a stroll…

Round' yonder bend.

Now, let me wring those stains out from your soul»!

She wailed as she washed

She laughed at the cross

I hastily patterned cross my chest

My vestment she wrung, and ruefully flung these burgundy bloodstains cross' my

breast

From round' yonder bend she came closing in. The shadowy Washer

At the Ford.

Jacklights were her eyes, foretelling demise

The flickering Washer at the Ford