Turtle doves (a subspecies of dove) are as old as the Song of Solomon, and appear throughout Eglish and American music as a symbol for peace, innocence, natural purity, and so on.

"Picture the little turtle dove,
Flying from piyun to pine,
A-mourning for his lost freedom,
As I, my love, for mine..."

(Woody Knows Nothin')

"Behold my love, thou hast dove's eyes....
And the song of the turtle is heard on our land....

(Song of Solomon).

If I had wings like Noah's dove
Fly across the river to the one I love...

(Dink's Song, trad)

"And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah's dove, come home to roost. "

(Old Martality, by Rober Louis Stevenson)

" Now lend me your love, baby please lend me your love
Well lend me your love, baby lend me your love
I know you hear me keep moaning
People, just like Noah's Dove"

('Lend Me Your Love' -- Memphis Slim)

"The finest ship that sails the sea Is still a prison for the likes of me
But give me wings like Noah's dove
I'll fly up harbour to the girl I love
Here's one more day on the Grey Funnel Line

(Grey Funnel Line, by Cyril Tawney)

"My parents flung me into this world
like Noah's dove, too
gentle for my own good
and I've been scaling the sky ever since
offering the words clenched in my mouth
to the sun.

("With an Olive Leaf", Joy Hewitt Mann)

Also:

SNOW WHITE DOVE    

They were very very happy, their marriage was a gem  
But death was soon to take his pretty wife away from him  
With her dying breath she whispered we'll have everlasting love  
And I'll come back to be with you as a little snow white dove  
  
Time went by and nothing happened the dove did not appear  
The young man fell in love again and married in a year  
But the day he brought his new bride home the neighbors were  
To see a snow white dove came fluttering down upon the snowball tree  
  
There she sobbed and moaned heartbroken in a almost human way  
No matter what the weather she would perch there every day  
When the neighbors and the servants, yes the story they had learned  
That in the `guise of this white dove the young wife had returned  

  

from a Digitrad mirror).

Just a few samples.

A

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone, 3-Apr-01.