False Lover (Has Brought Me to Despair)- Mr. Broomfield (Essex) 1904 Williams B
[Ralph Vaughan Williams Manuscript Collection (at British Library) (RVW2/5/24) with music. Also published in Journal of the Folk-Song Society- Volume 2, page 160, 1906-- under the title Died for Love. JFSS notes follow.
This is one of two ballads collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in the same area in 1904. Unfortunately the version published in Journal of the Folk-Song Society- Volume 2 is not his text but rather a composite of the two versions- which should have been announced in the publication. At that time it's clear that the writer[s] did not recognize the broadside from whence the majority of text was based-- The Constant Lady and the False-Hearted Squire." of c. 1868.
R. Matteson 2017]
JFSS notes: The first tune given reminds one slightly of the fourth version of " My true love once he courted Me," printed in Kidson's Traditional Tunes, and the song is much of the same theme.-F. K.
I have taken this down once in Somerset. Tune quite different-words much the same.-C. T. S.
False Lover (Has Brought Me to Despair)- sung by Mr. Broomfield of Herongate Essex on 22 February, 1904. Tune noted by R. Vaughan Williams Feb. 22nd, 1904.
I. Her father bin a noble knight,
Her mother bin, a lady bright:
I bin, an only child of her
False lover has brought me to despair.
II. There is a flower some people say,
Will give ease by night and day;
But if I could that flower find
'Twould ease my heart and cheer my mind."
III. Then in her father's fields she run,
Gathering flowers one by one:
Then some she plucked and some she pulled,
Until she gathered her apron full.
IV. Then unto her father's house she run,
Told them over one by one,
But (of) all the flowers she could not find
Would ease her heart and cheer her mind.
V. O yonder he stands on yonder hill,
He's got a heart as hard as steel,
He's gained two hearts in the room of one
And he'll be a true lover when I am gone.
VI. Then dig my grave both long and deep,
Put a marble stone at my head and feet,
And in the middle a turtle dove
To let the world know I died for love."