Beautiful Snow

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow, Filling the sky and the earth below." "It can do no wrong," but the singer, once "fair as the beautiful snow," "Fell like the snowflakes from heaven to hell." Now dying in the snow, she hopes God will have mercy
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1869 (J. W. Watson, "Beautiful Snow and Other Poems")
KEYWORDS: whore warning disease death | snow
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 210-218, "Beautiful Snow" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: J. W. Watson, _Beautiful Snow and Other Poems_, Turner and Company, Philadelphia, 1869 (available on Google Books), pp. 2-11, "Beautiful Snow" (1 text)
Hazel Felleman, Best Loved Poems of the American People, pp. 188-190, "Beautiful Snow" (1 text)
Roud #36814
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Johnson Ballads 1856, "Beautiful Snow" J. Southward (Liverpool), n.d.
NOTES [124 words]: Blech.
I have no reason whatsoever to believe this is traditional, but Ford-SongHistories treats it as if it is, so it's indexed. The only thing that can be said in favor of it being traditional is that there was apparently a lot of argument about its authorship. Ford claims that a prostitute, who died "in or about 1863," was found with a copy of it on her. After which "not fewer than about half a score of writers" claimed in (p. 212).
What seems clear is that the earliest verifiable publication is by J. W. Watson. It is printed without a tune or tune indication, and it certainly isn't in any usual metrical form. Granger's Index to Poetry accepts this attribution, as does Felleman, and despite Ford, I have no reason to doubt it. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: FoSHi210

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