The Lowlands of Holland
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
The first night I was married I was a happy bride
Til the door blew in and the captain stood against my lover’s side
Arise, arise new married man and come along with me
To the Lowlands of Holland to fight the enemy
My love lies in the salt sea and I am on the side
Enough to break a young thing’s heart who lately was a bride
Who lately was a bonny bride with pleasure in her eye
But the Lowlands of Holland have parted my love and I
I’ll have no mantle cross my back, nor comb within my hair
No fire bright nor candlelight shall show my beauty rare
And I will ne’er get married until the day I die
Since the raging seas and the stormy winds have parted my love and I
Now hold your tongue my daughter dear be still and be content
There are many lads in Galway why do you so lament
There are plenty of lads in Galway but alas there’s none for me
Since the Lowlands of Holland have parted my love and me
Top
The Old Maid in the Garrett
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
I have often heard it said from my father and my mother
That going to a wedding is the making of another
Well if this be true then I’ll go without a bidding
For it’s kind Providence won’t you send me to a wedding
And it’s o dear me, how would it be, if I died an old maid in the garrett
Well now, there's my sister Jean,
she's not handsome or good looking
Barely sixteen and a fella she was courting
Now she’s twenty-four with a son and a daughter
Here am I forty-five and I haven’t had an offer
I can cook and I can sew and I can keep the house right tidy
Rise up in the morning and get the breakfast ready
There's nothing in this whole world would make me half so cheery
As a wee fat mannie who would make me his own dearie
So come landsman , come townsman , come tinker or come tailor
Come fiddler, come dancer, come soldier or come sailor
Come rich man, come poor man, come fool or come witty
Come any man at all that would marry me for pity
Well now I'm away home for nobody's heeding
Nobody's heeding to poor Annie’s pleading
I’m away home to my own wee bit garret
If I can't get a man, then I'll surely get a parrot
Top
The Connemara Shore
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
The morning not so long ago, I bade you fond goodbye
My heart was breaking in my breast, A tear was in my eye
The smiling valley lay behind, the stormy seas before
And the white waves rolled upon the Connemara Shore
No stormy seas may sunder us, though long the years may do
Still Connemara’s lovely hills will call me back to you
And ever as the years go by I’ll love thee more and more
As the white waves roll upon the Connemara Shore
But surely I’ll return again to you I love so dear
With joy for every sorrow past, a kiss for every tear
Then every hour of love will prove worth all that went before
With the white waves rolling on the Connemara Shore
Top
The Bonny Boy
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
The trees are growing high my love, and the grass is growing green;
And many a cold and winter night that I alone have been.
It is a cruel and bitter night that I must lie alone,
Oh! the Bonny Boy is young, but he is growing.
Oh! father, dear father I think you did me wrong
For to go and get me married to one that is so young.
He is but sixteen years and I am twenty-one.
Oh! the bonny boy is young and he's growing.
Oh! daughter, dear daughter, I did not do you wrong
For to go and get you married to one that is so young,
He will be a match for you when I am dead and gone.
Oh! the bonny boy is young, but he is growing.
Oh! father, dear father, I'll tell you what I'll do;
I'll send my love to college for another year or two;
And all around his college cap, I'll bind a ribbon blue,
For to let the ladies know that he's married.
A year it went by and I passed the college wall.
And saw the young collegians a-playing at the ball;
I spied him in among them, the fairest of them all,
Oh! my bonny boy was young and still growing.
At the age of sixteen years he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen the father of a son,
But at the age of eighteen, o'er his grave the grass grew green;
Cruel death put an end to his growing.
I'll buy my love a shroud of the Holland linen brown;
And whilst they are making it, the tears they will run down;
It's once I had a true love, but now he's lying low,
And I'll nurse his bonny boy while he's growing.
Top
Johnny the Daisy
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
I wish I had Johnny the journeyman
I wish I had Johnny the journeyman
We'd tramp it all day, We'd be happy and gay,
And me life would be idle and easy O.
I'll make tea for you old man,
And I'll make coffee for you old man;
Tea for you and coffee for me
And whiskey for Johnny the Journeyman.
Chorus
Oh here's to Johnny the Daisy O,
Polished his boots so neatly O,
With his three cocked hat
And his double row knot
And his fiddle for coaxing the ladies O.
I wish you were dead in your grave old man,
I wish you were dead in your grave old man,
I wish you were dead and a stone at your head,
The way I could marry the journeyman.
There's soup in the pot for me old man,
There's soup in the pot for you old man,
Soup for me, the bones for you,
And the chicken for Johnny the Journeyman.
Chorus
I wish I was single and free again,
An old man would never get me again;
Bad cess to the day and bad cess to the way
That I jilted Johnny the Journeyman.
I wish that I never was wed old man
To yourself and your old feather bed old man,
a drop in your eye a tear and a sigh,
You keep me away from the Journeyman.
Chorus
I wish that you were in jail, old man,
I wish that you were in jail, old man,,
If you were in jail I'd give you no bail,
And that would suit Johnny the Journeyman.
I wish I had Johnny the Journeyman,
I wish I had Johnny the Journeyman,
With his weekly pay we'd be happy and gay,
And me life would be happy and easy O.
Chorus
Top
My Lagan Love
(Lyric Joseph Campbell, melody traditional, arranged Campbell)
Where Lagan streams sing lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a lovesick lenanshee
She fills my heart with thrall
Nor life I own nor liberty
for love is lord of all
And often when the beetle’s horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn
And through the dooring peep
Thereon the cricket’s singing stone
She stirs the bogwood fire
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The song of heart’s desire
Her welcome like her love for me
Is from the heart within
Her warm kiss felicity
That knows no taint or sin
When she was only fairy small
Her gentle mother died
But true love keeps her memory warm
By Lagan’s silver side
Top
Down by the Green Bushes
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
As I was a walking one morning in May
To hear the birds singing and see lambkins play
I spied a young woman so sweetly sang she
Down by the green bushes where she chanced to meet me
Oh why are you waiting round here pretty maid
I’m waiting for my true love softly she said
Can I be your true love and will you agree
To leave your own sweetheart and follow with me
I will give you find furs and fine silken hose
I’ll give you fine petticoats flounced to the ground
I’ll bring you fine jewels and live just for thee
If you’ll leave your own true love and marry with me
I want none of your furs or your fine silken hose
For I’m not so poor as to marry for clothes
But if you’ll be constant and true unto me
Then I’ll leave my own true love and marry with thee
Oh! let us be going kind sir if you please
Oh! let us be going from under the trees
For yonder is coming my true love I see
Down by the green bushes where he hopes to meet me
And when he came there and found she had gone
He looked brokenhearted and cried quite forlorn
She’s gone with another and forsaken me
And left the green bushes where she vowed she’d meet me.
Top
Seoladh na nGamhna
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
Tráthnóinín déanach ar thaobh an ghleanna
‘S mé ‘seoladh na ngamhna faoin bhfásach.
‘Sea dhearcas taobh liom an spéirbhean chailce
chiúntais bhanúil náireach;
D’fhiosraíos féin go séimh den ainnir
An éinn’ í thar lear do tharla;
“Ag lorg n ngamhna ‘s ea d’fhágas an baile
‘gus ceann ní bhfaighead go lá ‘cu.”
Tá crainnín cumhra i lúib na coille
Is rogham araon go lá ann
Mar a mbeidh ceol n n-éan dár síorchur a chodladh
Is gheaoghaimid na gamhna ‘marach;
Gheobham cead saor ó mhaoraibh na coille
Féar a thabhairt go lá dhóibh
‘S le fáinne an lae beam araon ‘nár seasamh
Ag seoladh n ngamhna faoin bhfásach.
Top
Farewell But Whenever
(The Scent of the Roses)
(Thomas Moore, melody traditional, arranged Campbell)
Farewell! but whenever you welcome the hour
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower,
Then think of the friend who once welcomed it too,
And forgot his own griefs to be happy with you.
His griefs may return, not a hope may remain
Of the few that have brighten'd his pathway of pain,
But he ne'er will forget the short vision, that threw
Its enchantment around him, while lingering with you.
And still on that evening, when pleasure fills up
To the highest top sparkle each heart and each cup,
Where'er my path lies, be it gloomy or bright,
My soul, happy friends, shall be with you that night;
Shall join in your revels, your sports, and your wiles,
And return to me, beaming all o'er with your smiles --
Too blest, if it tells me that, 'mid the gay cheer,
Some kind voice has murmur'd, "I wish he were here!"
Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy;
Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care,
And bring back the features that joy used to wear.
Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd!
Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd --
You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
Top
Let Him Go, Let Him Tarry
(traditional, arranged Campbell)
Farewell to cold winter, now that summer's come at last
Nothing have I gained but my own true love I’ve lost
I'll sing and I'll be happy like the birds upon the tree
For since he deceived me I care no more for he
Chorus
Let him go, let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim
He doesn't care for me nor I don't care for him
He can go and get another that I hope he will enjoy
For I’m going to marry a far nicer boy
He wrote me a letter saying he was very bad
I wrote him back an answer saying I was awful glad
He wrote to me another saying he was well and strong
But I care no more about him than the ground he walks upon
Some of his friends have a good kind wish for me
But others of his friends they could hang me from a tree
But soon I'll let them see my love, and soon I'll let them know
That I can get a new sweetheart on any grounds I go
He can go to his old mother now and set her mind at ease
For she’s a mean old woman, and she’s very hard to please
It's slighting me and talking ill is all she’s ever done
Since I’ve been courting her great big ugly son
Top
The Hills of Glenswilly
(Michael McGinley, melody traditional, arranged Campbell)
Attention pay my countrymen and hear my native news
Although my song is sorrowful I hope you’ll me excuse
I left my native country a far foreign land to see
And I bid farewell to Donegal and likewise to Glenswilly
Twas on a summer’s morning at the dawning of the day
I left my peaceful happy home to wander far away
And as I view that grand old glen perhaps no more to see
I thought my heart it would surely break on leaving Glenswilly
No more among the sycamore shall I hear the blackbird sing
No more I’ll hear the blithe cuckoo to welcome back the Spring
No more I'll plough those fertile fields a hush le geal mo chroí
On a foreign soil I’m doomed to toil far away from Glenswilly
God bless you dark old Donegal my own my native land
In dreams I’ll see your heather glens and towering mountains grand
God bless the day twill yet come round when I’ll return to thee
And I’ll live as my forefathers lived and died in Glenswilly.
Top
She Moved Through the Fair
(traditional, arranged Campbel, Emmett)
My young love said to me
my mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you
for your lack of kine
And she stepped away from me
and this she did say
It will not be long love
till our wedding day
She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair,
And fondly I watched her go here and go there,
Then she went her way homeward with one star awake,
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.
The people were saying no two were e'er wed,
But one had a sorrow that never was said,
And she moved away from me with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.
My young love came to me, she came softly in,
So softly she came that her feet made no din,
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."
Top
|
