True Lover Of Mine- Biddy Hickey (Lim) c.1837 Joyce
[Patrick Weston Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music And Songs, 1909, No. 117, pp. 59-60, also Bronson I, 2.27, p. 21
Patrick Weston Joyce (1827 – 7 January 1914) was born in Ballyorgan in the Ballyhoura Mountains, on the borders of counties Limerick and Cork in Ireland.
R. Matteson 2018]
117. THEN YOU SHALL BE A TRUELOVER OF MINE.
When I was a child, I often heard this song sung by our servant Biddy Hickey. A young man pays his addresses to a lady much above him ; and she, in her pride, imposes a number of hard — or impossible — conditions before she will consent to marry him. I remember the air, and just two verses of Biddy's song. This same idea is found also in English folksongs: and with a similar burden: but their air is different from mine.
"Then You Shall Be A True Lover Of Mine"
Choose when you can an acre of land —
As every plant grows merry in time —
Between the salt water and the sea strand,
And then you shall be a truelover of mine.
Plough it up with an old ram's horn,
As every plant grows merry in time :
Sow it all over with one grain of corn —
And then you shall be a truelover of mine.