Weary of Lying Alone

DESCRIPTION: Singer hears a maid moan: I'm weary of lying alone. She is either 11 + 1 + 7 years old or, when she was 11 she had 7 sweet hearts but now has not 1. She would be a wife. She/he says there's a flower in the garden that should be plucked before it fades.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1778 (Carey)
KEYWORDS: marriage sex virginity bawdy
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
OCroinin/Cronin-TheSongsOfElizabethCronin 144, "Taim Cortha O Bheith Im' Aonar Im' Lui" (2 texts, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: George G. Carey, A Sailor's Songbag (Amherst University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), #43 pp. 118-119 "A New Song" ("Come come pretty Sally and set you down by me") (1 text)
Roud #9384
RECORDINGS:
Elizabeth Cronin, "Taim Cortha O Bheith Im' Aonar Im' Lui" (on IRECronin01)
NOTES [252 words]: OCroinin/Cronin-TheSongsOfElizabethCronin is macaronic, alternating Irish and English verses. Some of the English verses match Carey's. The description combines OCroinin/Cronin-TheSongsOfElizabethCronin and Carey.
Also see Broadside EngBdsdBA 20113, Pepys 1.246-247, "The Mayden's Complaint for a Bedfellow or I Can Nor Will No Longer Lye Alone" ("Can any man tell what I ayle: because I look so weake so pale"), John White (London?), 1615?, accessed 08 Dec 2013, which ends "And Young-men all that see my case, / Take some pitty on my Maiden face: / Rid me of my cares and greefes each one: / And let me now no longer ly alone." The man's side also has a Pepys text: Broadside EngBdsdBA 20105, Pepys 1.232-233, "A Batchelers Resolution or Haue Among You Now, Widowes or Maydes" ("A Batchelour I haue beene long, and had no minde to marry"), unknown, 1629?, accessed 08 Dec 2013.
A verse in Carey is "The seas are deep I cannot wade them / Neither have I wings to fly / I wish that I had some little small boat / For to ferry my love and I, for to ferry my love and I...."
A close verse noted in Peacock's 1952 text that I assigned to "Carrickfergus" is "The ocean is wide and I can't wade over, / Neither have I wings to fly, / But if I had some old skipper boat-man, / I would ferry me over my love and I." The Sandburg text assigned to "Carrickfergus" has "The world's so wide I cannot cross it, / The sea's so deep I cannot wade, / I'll just go hire me a little boatman / To row me across the stormy tide." - BS
Last updated in version 3.2
File: OCC144

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