Awake, thou fairest thing- (UK) c.1725 Ramsey
[No location or informant named. From Allan Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany: A Collection of Choice Songs, Scots & English; Volume 2, dated circa 1725. Another date of 1727 has been given. This fragment has similar wording to the first two measures of the 1817 broadside, The Drowsy Sleeper.
R. Matteson 2016]
Song XCVII.
He
Awake, thou fairest thing in nature
How can you sleep when day does break?
How can you sleep, my charming creature,
When half a world for you are awake.
She
What swain is this that sings so early,
Under my window by the dawn?
He
'Tis one, dear nymph, that loves you dearly,
Therefore in pity ease my pain.
She.
Softly, else you'll 'wake my mother,
No tales of love she lets me hear;
Go tell your passion to some other,
Or whisper softly in my ear.
He.
How can you bid me love another,
Or rob me of your beauteous charms?
'Tis time you were wean'd from your mother,
You're fitter for a lover's arms.