Mary of the Wild Moor

We grew up with music. Daddy would pick up his guitar, start strumming, and sing. It wasn't a planned event, just a normal event as common as eating three meals a day. Daddy sang the Ernest Tubb songs, Jimmy Rodgers, and of course the beautiful hymns he had learned as a boy at the Methodist Church in Sandy Hook. Blue Grass had taken hold in his teens, and sometimes, he would play a little of that too.

One of the many songs that was a constant in our house was one he had learned from his Mother. Daddy would pick up his guitar, and with his four children tucked into their beds, he would start singing from our tiny living room in his rich baritone voice,

Oh, father, dear father, she cried
Come down and open the door
Or the child in my arms will perish and die
From the winds that blow across the wild moor

Hauntingly beautiful, we rested peacefully to the sound of Daddy's voice. Our Daddy was there, and would always hear us at the door.


Mary of the Wild Moor

'Twas on one cold wintry night
And the wind blew across the wild moor
As poor Mary came wandering home with her child
She stopped at her own father's door

Oh, father, dear father, she cried
Come down and open the door
Or the child in my arms will perish and die
From the winds that blow across the wild moor

But the father was deaf to her cry
Not a sound of her voice did he hear
Though the watch dogs did howl and the village bells tolled
And the winds blew across the wild moor

Oh, how the old man must have felt
When they came to the door the next morn
And found Mary dead, but the child still alive
Closely clasped in its dead mother's arms

In anguish he tore his gray hair
And the tears down his cheeks they did pour
When he saw how that night she had perished and died
From the winds that blew across the wild moor

The old man with grief pined away
And the child to its mother went soon
And no one they say has lived there to this day
And the cottage to ruin has gone

But the villagers point out the spot
Where the willows droop over the door
Saying there Mary died once a gay village bride
From the winds that blew across the wild moor