The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169574   Message #4098972
Posted By: Joe Offer
23-Mar-21 - 06:42 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Away to the Mountain's Brow
Subject: ADD: Away to the Mountain's Brow
AWAY TO THE MOUNTAIN'S BROW

Away, away to the mountain's brow,
Where the trees are gently waving.
Away, away to the mountain's brow,
While the stream is gently laving.
And beauty, my love, on thy cheek shall dwell,
Like the rose as it opes to the day,
While the zephyr that breathes thro' the flow'ry dell,
Shakes the sparkling dew-drops away.

Away, away to the rocky glen,
Where the dear are wildly bounding,
And the hills shall echo in gladness again
To the hunter's bugle sounding;
While beauty, my love, on thy cheek shall dwell,
Like the rose as it opes to the day,
While the zephyr that breaths thro' the flow'ry dell,
Shakes the sparkling dew-drops away.

This is from a 19th-century English broadside from the Borowitz Collection at Kent State University Library. Of all the versions I saw, only the broadside at Kent State and one identical one at Bodleian Ballads had "breaths." It's clear that the word should be "breathes."
https://omeka.library.kent.edu/special-collections/items/show/6846

Also in The National Melodist (Edinburgh, 1837) at the National Library of Scotland, with "breathes" instead of "breaths." "Breathes" makes more sense, so the broadside text must be a typo.

https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/90243654?mode=transcription

And at Bodleian Ballads: http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search/firstline/Away%20away%20to%20the%20mountains%20brow

This song is Number V155 in the Roud Index. It is not listed in the Traditional Ballad Index.