Joan Baez - Lady Gay

There was a lady
And a lady gay,
Of children she had three,
She sent them away
To the North Countree
To learn their grammaree

They'd not been gone
But a very short time,
Scarcely three weeks and a day,
When death, cruel death,
Came hasting along
And stole those babes away.

There is a King
In Heaven, she cried
A King of third degree
Send back, send back
my three little pages,
This night send back to me.

She made a bed
In the uppermost room,
On it she put a white sheet,
And over the top
A golden spread
That they much better might sleep.

Take it off, take it off,
Cried the older one,
Take it off, take it off,
Cried he, for what's to become
Of this wide wicked world
Since sin has first begun.

She set a table of linen fine
On it she placed bread and wine
Come eat, come drink
My three little babes
Come eat, come drink of mine.

We want none of your bread, mother,
Neither do we want your wine,
For yonder stands
Our savior deer,
To him we must resign.

Green grass is over
Our heads, mother,
Cold clay is over our feet,
And every tear you shed for us,
It wets our winding-sheet.