George Collins walked out one May morning
When May was all in bloom.
'Twas there he beheld a pretty fair maid
She was washing her white marble stone.
She whooped, she hollered, she highered her voice,
She raised up her lilywhite hand.
'Come hither to me, George Collins,' quoth she,
'For thy life shall not last you long.'
He took her by the milk-white hand,
Likewise by the grass-green sleeve.
He's laid her down upon the bank
And never has asked her leave.
George Collins cried out "O, hold and alas!
So sore is this pain in my head!"
Merrily laughed the mermaiden,
"Oh ever 'til you be dead."
George Collins took out his little penknife,
So sharp for to draw her blood.
But she's become a fish again
And sprang into the flood.
George Collins rode home to his father's own gate
And loudly he did ring.
George Collins rode home to his father's own gate
For the help of his kith and kin.
"Arise, dear father, and let me in.
Rise, dear mother, and make my bed,
Arise my dear sister and get me a napkin,
A napkin to bind 'round my head."
"For if I chance to die this night,
As I fear in my heart I will,
Go bury me under that marble stone
At the foot of fair Helen's hill."
Fair Helen doth sit in her room so fine,
A-sewing her silver skein.
When she sees the fairest corpse a-coming
That ever the sun shined on.
She called unto her Irish maid:
"Whose corpse is this so fine?"
"They say is George Collins' corpse a-coming,
That once was a true lover of thine."
"Now you go upstairs and fetch me the sheet
What's wove with the silver twine,
Go hang it over George Collins' head.
Tomorrow it shall hang over mine."
The news went round through fair London town,
Was wrote on fair London's gate,
Six pretty maids died all of one night,
And all for George Collins' fate.