Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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List of the still-lost songs: do you know any of them?
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I started out thinking this song would be the usual dreary glop but I ended up loving it. It took a surprising amount of time to get the muted fiddle to sound as sad and quiet as I wanted it to be. It was published in 1908; the music is by L. Samoiloff, the lyrics by J. Marinoff, and it is dedicated to "my dear cousin, Joseph Barondess, New York." You can google as much as you like about tuberculosis and the sanitoriums of the time. I put it on my album "Yiddish Parlor Songs." Here's the youtube video:

Here, the transliteration and translation of the lyrics:

Dos shvindtsikhtike meydl (The tubercular maiden)

Un ven der friling hot bagrist mit libe undzer velt
Dan hot zi blumen ayngeflantst arum ir vaysn tselt.
"Oy, libe kerendlekh" hot zi gekhlipet a gebet
"oy, zet di blumen zoln nit aroysblien tsu shpet, tsu shpet!

Shlogt gikh di vortsl in di erd di shtenglekh shist aroys,
oy, mir tsu lebn iz bashert nor teg getseylte bloyz
tog teglekh vel ikh faykht makhn mit treren ayer bet,
nor libenke farsoymt aykh nit un blit nit af tsu shpet.

Di kerendlekh zey hobn ir bakoshe nit gehert
zey hobn zikh a hipshe tsayt farvaylt unter der erd.
Itst hobn zey aroysgeshikt a blienden buket
Nor far der kranker iz es shoyn geven tsu shpet tsu shpet

And when spring greeted our world with love
Then she sowed flower seeds around her bright surroundings
Oh, dear seeds," she sobbed out a prayer,
"Oh, see that the flowers don't bloom too late!"

Set your roots quickly in the earth, shoot out the stems,
Oy, I'm destined to live only a few more numbered days
Every day I will water your flower bed with tears
But, dear, don't hold back and bloom too late

The seeds didn't hear her request.
For a long time they tarried under the ground.
Now, they have sent forth a blooming bouquet.
But for the sick girl it is already too late.