Oops--sorry, some lines got lost somehow. It begins as follows: Once I loved a lass and she loved not me Because I was grown poor, poor a little, poor a little, poor, But she all in good part hath stole away my heart And she'll keep it for evermore.
When I came to my true love's door I knocked [etc.] Mind you, how the things are related is moot: the 16th century verse MAY have had more words, but it may also have been something of a "floater", and managed to find a berth in a song on the Night Visit. I don't suppose we will ever be sure. -- Were I as accomplished (if that's the word) a forger as Payne Collier last century, I'd try and turn out a pseudo-Tudor song of at least four verses on the theme. I throw that out just for fun, mind you!! There are some things out there that SHOULD have existed, but never did till a twentieth-century rhymer filled the void. Case in point, the so-called "ancestor" of "Waltzing Matilda" about "Marlborough and Me".
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