Weary the Tide, or Spring Tide Rising (Paul Davenport)
Weary the Tide
Oh Billy, you are my darling Oh Billy, my own dear lad Will you meet with me by moonlight You’re the only love I ever had Come meet with me down on the seashore Come to me down by the sea And I will be your own true love Under the trysting tree
Weary the tide comes up, weary the tide goes down Rises and falls by the light of the moon ‘til it washes away the town She met with her own true lover She met with him ‘neath the moon By the tree that stands in the water But she granted her favour too soon Oh Billy now don’t you dare leave me A promise you made unto me And you carved it with flint in the moonlight On the trunk of the trysting tree
But he’s laughed as she lay there a-weeping Ah, your favour you gifted too soon Where’s your witness to what I had promised Under the light of the moon? Then he’s sailed him away to the northward Where Kessingland shone on the lee And he’s taken his boat to the fishing Never thought of the trysting tree
But she screamed as the tide was turning Oh Billy you shalln’t leave me And her love turned to hatred a-burning And her heart grew as cold as can be The pain it prick’d sharp as a thistle As she turned and she faced out to sea Put fingers to lips and she’s whistled Under the trysting tree
There’s a gale has sprung out of the Lowlands And it howled like a poor hell-bound soul And it battered from Southwold to Yarmouth Left scarcely a vessel whole Oh Billy it cried, Come find me Oh Billy return unto me For the promise you made, it shall bind ye Unto the trysting tree
Cold was the spring tide rising Cold was the ice on the broad Cold were the sightless eyes gazing As she waits for the lad she adored Small wavelets carried him to her Lifted his head on her knee And the sea-wrack held fast and entwined them Unto the trysting tree
Notes: Weary the Tide In my early childhood in the 1950s, I recall that, every morning the milk was delivered by an amazon called Dorothy. She dragged a cart which was stacked high with metal milk crates and she sang or whistled as she walked. The house opposite was occupied by the Jagger family and the father, Jack, was a ‘sparks’ or wireless operator on the trawlers. On one memorable occasion the taxi came to take himself and Jimmy Milne, a Scot who had the same line of work, to the dock for their fishing trip. As they went to the taxi door, Dorothy arrived whistling away without a care in the world. It was years later that I found out the reason for what happened next. The two men began arguing for what I thought was no reason. Jimmy stormed off leaving Jack to pay for the taxi. In the event the transport left empty. My mate John was Jack’s son but he never said anything and seemed to regard the event as normal and unremarkable. I do remember it was a Friday. Of course Jimmy, as a Scot was only too aware of the dangers of pigs, black cats, hares and whistling women, most especially, on a Friday. The famed Witches of Dunbar had whistled up storms and this superstition lies at the root of this song. Just north of what is left of the village of Covehithe, Suffolk there is a strange phenomenon, a tree that stands in the sea. The trunk is carved with the names of what one presumes are young lovers. Not particularly unusual although the flints, driven into the whitened wood, almost like votive offerings add a particularly strange air to this beautful beach. The following song unites these folkloric ‘facts’ in a typically 19th century setting.