First, let me confess ignorance about the origin of the main tune; in particular, I don't know if Clifton wrote it or not. If you know the tune by another name or source, please let us know.
Oh would I were a bird Charles Blamphin wrote both words and music for the original song, which can be found online in the Lester S. Levy Collection: Levy Call Number: Box 120, Item 034 Title: O Would I Were a Bird. Ballad. Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Composed by C. Bamphlin. [Note that they've misspelled his name, so a search on "Blamphin" will fail.]
The tune is essentially as given in the Clifton song. A short sampling of the lyrics:
Oh would I were a bird / That I might fly to thee And breathe a loving word / To one so dear to me. How happy would I be, / Carolling all the day-- If only blest with thee, / Beguiling time away.
Oh if I had someone to love me This title appears on several antiquarian bookseller lists associated with Frederick Buckley. Buckley was a contemporary of Clifton's, and several examples of his work can also be found in the Levy, for instance: My Home Is on the Sea (1858) Written by S.S. Steele. Music by Fredk. Buckley, Musical Director of Buckley's Opera Troupe, N.Y.
O[h] Jerusalem Searching on the combination of Jerusalem and costermonger turned up one quotation of the lyrics, which was also exact:
Excerpt from the novel Tim (1891), by Howard Overing Sturgis, pp. 124-5:
Tim was writing his weekly letter to his father, but consented readily to accompany him [Tommy Weston, his school chum], if he would wait till he had finished ; and the concluding sentences were rendered even more laborious than usual to the scribe, by the distracting behaviour of his companion, who was occupying the interval with a sort of highland fling, while he sang to a well-known Scottish air, just then familiarised to Southern ears by the base uses of a comic song, these remarkable words— Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Oh, Jerusalem, the costermonger's donkey. ' Oh! please, Tommy, don't make that dreadful noise,' said poor Tim. ' How can I get done ?' ' Dreadful noise, indeed! it's a Sabbath hymn, you profane little wretch,' retorted the irrepressible, at the same time pulling Tim's inky pen upwards through his fingers, to teach him, as he said, proper respect to his elders.
Correction: The arranger's name is Martin Hobson, not Michael (as I've unfortunately written in several threads besides this one).