ONCE MY TRUE LOVE COURTED ME
(learned from Bill Briggs and Charlie Brown at Teton Tea parties)
Oh, once my true love courted me, and stole away my liberty,
There is an alehouse in the town, and there my true love sits him down,
There is a bird in yon churchyard, they say he's blind, and cannot see,
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain, I wish I were a maid again.
(from miriam berg's folksong collection)
He gained my heart with a magic spell, yet I confess I love him still.
And takes a strange girl on his knee; and don't you know, that's a grief to me.
But never a fool as blind as me since I first kept my love's company.
But a maid again I cannot be since I kept my lover's company.