Never Love Thee More
Paul Stamler has provided the following: "Here are the lyrics to Derwentwater's Farewell, sung to a slowed-down version of Never Love Thee More. They came from Louis Killen's LP (not, alas, reissued), "Old Songs, Old Friends" (Front Hall FHR-012, rec. 1977). Or is Never Love Thee More a sped-up version of this?"
Derwentwater's Farewell
Fareweel to pleasant Dilston Hall, my father's ancient seat
A stranger now mun ca' thee his, which gars my heart to greet (See note)
Fareweel, fareweel each welknown face my heart has held so dear
My tenants now mun leave their land or hold their lives in fear.
Fareweel, fareweel, my bonny gray steed, that carried me aye so free
I wish I'd been sleeping in my bed last time I mounted thee
Fareweel, fareweel, my lady dear, ill, ill thou counselled me
I never mair may see the babe, ye dandle on your knee.
The warning bell now bids me cease, my trouble's nearly o'er
The sun that rises frae the east will rise on me nae mair
Albeit that here in London town it is my fate to die
Oh, but carry me back to Northumberland, in my father's grave to lie.
Note: mun ca : must call; gars : makes; greet : grief.
Killen's notes: And in 1962 I learned a song from the 'Northumbrian Minstrelsy' that has never ceased to move me -- sometimes to tears; the farewell (as written by Scotsman Robert Surtees years after the event) of James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, before his execution in 1716 in London for his 'treason' of supporting James Stuart's bid for the throne in the 1715 uprising -- 'Derwentwater's Farewell'.
James adds, "I've heard him add, in concert, that the reference to his lady in the second verse -- "Ill, ill thou counselled me" -- refers to her having urged him to support James's cause.
Here's another version but I'm not sure where I got it.
I'll never love thee more, and The Blazing Torch.
Folger MS V.a. 339, c 1625?
I'll never love thee more.
My deare & only love take heed
how thou thy selfe expose
& let thy longing lovers feed
upon such lookes as those
A marble wall may round about
be built wtout a dore
but if thy heart shall once breake out
Ile never love thee more
You lete not thine oathes like volly shott
make any breache at all
nor suffer to soe lignir plot
wt wrong to seal thie wake
nor bales of wild fire to consume
thy shrine yt I do adore
for if some smoke about it fume
Ile never love thee more
I know thy virtue are too strong
to suffer by surprise
Crirford[?] by thy love so longe
the siedge at last must rise
yet leave ye rulor in love, yt health
Ye state it was before
But if yu prove a rym worthy
Ile neaver love thee more
Now if by fraud or by consent
myselfe to ruine ronne
Ile sound no trumpet when I wend
nor march by sound of Drum
But holde mine arms like patient up
thy fallshood so deplore
& after sing or killer cup
Ile neaver love thee more
But doe by thee as Nero did
When Rome was set on fire
nor only so all helpe forbid
But to a hill retire
I scorn to shed a teare so loine
a sperit growne so poore
but smile & singe & go to thy grave
And neaver love the more.
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