Young Charlotte

Notes:
A gruesome winter song for you in the middle of a hot summer at the time when it feels merely theoretical.
As sung by Asa Davis (Milton, Vermont). Recorded by Helen Hartness Flanders in 1947, and accessed on the Flanders Archive: sites.middlebury.edu/flanders...
A known symptom of hypothermia is that the victim may feel warm or hot as they are freezing to death, even entering a phase known as "paradoxical undressing" where they tear off layers of clothing in an attempt to cool down. This is a popular theory explaining the deaths in the Dyatlov Pass Incident (if you haven't heard of this, exercise caution when googling due to disturbing events).
Lyrics:
Young Charlotte lived by the mountainside, in a lone and dreary spot,
No dwellings there for five miles round except her father’s cot.
But yet on many a winter’s eve young swains would gather there;
Her father kept a social board and she was very fair.
Her father loved to see her dressed prim as a City belle,
For she was the only child he had and he loved his daughter well.
T’was New Year’s Eve, the sun went down, she looked with anxious eye
Along the frosty windowpane to see the sleighs pass by.
At a village about fifteen miles off there’s a merry ball tonight;
The air is freezing cold above but the hearts are warm and bright.
And while she looked with longing eyes till a well-known voice she hears,
And dashing up to the cottage door, young Charlie’s sleigh appears.
Her mother says, “My daughter dear, this blanket round you fold,
For it is a dreadful night abroad and you’ll catch your death of cold.”
“O no, O no,” young Charlotte said, and she laughed like a gypsy queen,
“For to ride in blankets muffled up I never could be seen.
“My silken cloak is quite enough - ‘tis lined, you know, throughout,
And then I have a silken shawl to tie my face about.”
Her gloves and bonnet being on, she jumped into the sleigh,
And away they ride o’er the mountainside and o’er the hills away.
There’s music in those merry bells as o’er the hills they go,
What a cracking rate the runners make as they bite the frozen snow!
Then o’er the hills and faster o’er and by the cold starlight,
When Charles in his few frozen words at least the silence broke.
“Such a night as this I never knew; my reins I scarce can hold.”
Young Charlotte said with a feeble voice, “I am exceeding cold.”
He cracked his whip, he urged his team much faster than before,
And then the other five miles round in silence were rode o’er.
“How fast,” said Charles, “the freezing ice is gathering on my brow!”
Young Charlotte said with a feeble voice, “I’m growing warmer now.”
Then o’er the hills and faster o’er and by the cold starlight,
Until they reached the village inn, and the ballroom was in sight.
They reached the inn and Charles sprang out, and, giving his hand to her,
“Why sit you like a monument what has no power to stir?”
He called her once, he called her twice, but yet she never stirred,
He called her name again and again, but the answer: not a word.
He took her hand in his: O God, it was cold and hard as stone.
He tore the mantle from her brow, and the cold stars on her shone.
Then quickly to the lighted hall her lifeless form he bore,
For Charlotte was a frozen corpse and word spoke never more.
He knelt himself down by her side and bitter tears did flow.
For he said “My young intended bride I never more shall know.”
He flung his arms around her neck and kissed her marble brow,
His thoughts went back to the place she said, “I’m growing warmer now.”
He bore her out into the sleigh, and with her he rode home,
And when they reached the cottage door, O how her parents mourned,
They mourned for the loss of their daughter dear, and Charles mourned o’er the gloom,
When Charles’ heart with grief did break, they slumber in one tomb.

[@KarenHaffner]

That's a great one, April. Thanks!