The Cuckoo

Here is a song collected from Mary Langsworthy in Stoke Fleming South Devon in 1892 by Sabine Baring Gould. He went around the South West of England writing listening to ordinary people - mostly old - sing songs they had sung all their lives and that had been handed down from generation to generation. The Baring Gould manuscripts are in Plymouth Library. Back in the 1960's you could actually use the original manuscripts and this is one of the songs I collected and used myself. It was a well enough known song throughout England and could be found in various early 19th C. publications. The theme of the song seems to be that the inconstant lover is first likened to a Cuckoo that is a rover and lastly to a Sycamore which drops its leaves early.

The Cuckoo

The Cuckoo is a pretty bird she sings as she flies
Her bringeth good tidings her telleth no lies
Her sucketh sweet floers to keep her voice clear
And when she sings cuckoo the summer draweth near.

O meeting is a pleasure but parting is griewf
An inconstant lover is worse than a thief
A thief can but rob me of all that I have
But an inconstant lover wil send me to the grave.

The grave will receive me and bring me to dust
An inconstant lover no maiden can trust
They'll court you and kiss you poor maids to deceive
There's not one in twenty that one may beleive

Come all you fair maidens wherever you may be
Don't hang your poor hearts on the Sycamore tree
The leaf it will wither the roots will decay
And if I'm forsaken I persih away.

Here is a scan of the melody with chords.