Track 9 - Turtle Dove. Sung by Mary Humphreys,banjo accompaniment.
The song was , I think , originally collected by H.E.Hammond about 100 years ago. I have been singing it so long that it has become a part of me and I may well have inadvertently changed the words to sound more like my own patterns of speech. But that's the folk process, folks!
Here are the words:
TURTLE DOVE - English traditional, South of England.

O don't you see the turtle dove,
Sitting under yonder tree,
Lamenting for her own true love,
As I will mourn for thee my dear,
As I will mourn for thee.

If you must suffer grief & pain
'Tis but for a little while
For though I go away I'll return again
Though I row ten thousand mile, my dear
Though I row ten thousand mile.

Ten thousand mile is very far
For me to bide alone
With a heavy heavy sigh & a bitter bitter cry,
No-one to hear my moan my dear
No-one to hear my moan.

I may not stay your grievous moan,
Your pain I may not ease,
But I will love but you alone
'Til the streams run from the seas my dear
Til the streams run from the seas.

The tide shall cease to beat the shore,
The stars fall from the skies,
But I will love you more & more
Until the day I die, my love
Until the day I die.

Then let the seas run dry sweetheart,
The rocks melt with the sun.
Here will I stay nor ever from you part
'Til all my days are done, my dear
'Til all my days are done.

Engineered & recorded by Anahata ( treewind)at my old home in Barkisland, West Yorkshire.