The True Lover's Farewell
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
O fare you well, I must be gone
And leave you for a while:
But wherever I go, I will return,
If I go ten thousand mile, my dear,
If I go ten thousand mile.
Ten thousand miles it is so far
To leave me here alone,
Whilst I may lie, lament and cry,
And you will not hear my moan, my dear,
And you will not hear my moan.
The crow that is so black, my dear,
Shall change his colour white;
And if ever I prove false to thee,
The day shall turn to night, my dear,
The day shall turn to night.
O don't you see that milk-white dove
A-sitting on yonder tree,
Lamenting for her own true love,
As I lament for thee, my dear,
As I lament for thee.
The river never will run dry,
Nor the rocks melt with the sun;
And I'll never prove false to the girl I love
Till all these things be done, my dear,
Till all these things be done.
"The True Lover's Farewell", also known as "The Turtle Dove", "The Storms Are on the Ocean" or<br> "Ten Thousand Miles" is a song known in both England and America. Cecil Sharp collected nine<br> variants in the Appalachian Mountains.<br> "The True Lover's Farewell" appeared in Roxburghe Ballads (1710). It was also in Five<br> Excellent New Songs (1792). The song is similar to a song "Queen Mary's Lament" that was printed<br> in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (1787-1803). Robert Burns had a copy of a broadside of the tune.<br> It was the source for many of the lines from "My Love is Like a Red, Red, Rose".<br> "True lover" is the kind of motif that appears many times in folk songs. A hero or heroine's<br> white horse is usually a "milk white steed" and a lover is usually a "true lover". When the<br> relationship goes wrong, the "true lover" becomes a "false true lover".<br> It was printed in<br> Belden's Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society (1955),<br> Cohen, Seeger and Wood's Old Time String Band Songbook (1964) (as "The Storms Are on the Ocean"),<br> Friedman's The Penguin Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World (1956),<br> Karpeles' The Crystal Spring: English Folk Songs Collected by Cecil Sharp (1975),<br> Lomax and Lomax's Our Singing Country (1941) (as "My Old True Love"),<br> Lunsford and Stringfield's 30 and 1 Folk Songs from the Southern Mountains (1929),<br> Sandburg's The American Songbag (1927),<br> Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917),<br> Sharp & Karpeles' 80 English Folk Songs (1968),<br> Sharp's One Hundred English Folksongs (1916),<br> Silber and Silber's Folksinger's Wordbook (1973) (as "The Storms Are On The Ocean",<br> "He's Gone Away" and "Turtle Dove").<br> It was included in the Roud Folk Song Index as #49.<br> It was recorded by<br> Aunt Molly Jackson on Anglo-American Shanties, Lyric Songs, Dance Tunes and Spirituals (1939) (as<br> "Ten Thousand Miles"),<br> Bascom Lamar Lunsford on Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina (1996)<br> (as "Little Turtle Dove"),<br> New Lost City Ramblers on 20 Years/Concert Performances (1978) (as "It's Hard to Leave You,<br> Sweet Love") and<br> Jean Ritchie & Doc Watson on Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson at Folk City (1963) (as "Storms Are On<br> the Ocean").<br> <br>
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