"On the Cold Ground" is also known as "I Prithee Love Turn to Me". The air appears in The Dancing Master of 1665 (Supplement to the 3rd edition), Musick's Delight on the Cithern (1666), and Apollo's Banquet for the Treble Violin (1669). The tune was ascribed to Matthew Lock, while the words were written by Sir William Davenant for the play The Rivals, performed around the year 1664. The tune was popular and used for at least four other ballads in the Roxburghe collection, though "many more" appear in other collections. It was also printed in Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. 2, (1859).