I was comparing some of the songs I have got against the Mudcat versions this song is similar to the one titled A NOBLEMAN'S WEDDING I think it differs enough to post my version. It is sung in Dorset by John Waltham.


BARK AND THE TREE

Lately last night, I was asked to a wedding,
The wedding of a fair maid that proved to me unkind,
For that day as she thought of her intended young lover,
Thoughts of her old one had run through her mind.

Supper being over and all things were ended,
Every young man was to sing a fine song,
Until it came to the turn of her former young lover,
And he sang of this fair maid who had done him such wrong.

"How can you sit at another man's table?
How can you drink of another man's wine?
How can you lie in the arms of another,
When it's many's a long night that you have lain in mine?"

The bride she was seated at the head of the table.
She knew her true love by his song very well.
Her heart it grew faint; she could stand it no longer.
Down at the feet of the bridegroom she fell.

"Oh, grant me one favour; one favour I'm asking.
Oh, grant me one favour, one favour of mine:
One night for to lie in the arms of another,
And the rest of my life I will lie in thine."

"You ask me a favour that cannot be granted,
For you should have thought, my lassie, in time;
Yet I can see very plainly that your poor heart is breaking,
And it's all for the love of this former young man."

Sobbing and sighing, she rose from the table.
Sobbing and sighing she went to her bed.
Ah, but early next morning when her bridegroom awakened,
He turned to his new bride and found she was dead.

"Oh Annie, lovely Annie, I never should have loved you,
For your love and my love they never could agree.
I own I have taken you from one you loved better.
I own I have taken you, the bark from the tree.

"So now I'll put on my suit of deep mourning;
A suit of deep mourning, I'll wear it for thee,
And I'll put away all my fine wedding garments,
And I'll try not to go between the bark and the tree."