Light of the Moon, The

DESCRIPTION: In the first and last verses the singer complains of being true but deserted by his lover because he is poor. The other verses describe a night visit -- they sport and play -- ended too early by a wakeful cock.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Purslow-MarrowBones)
KEYWORDS: poverty courting love sex rejection nightvisit chickens
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "OH, ONCE I LOVED A LASS"
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 59, "The Grey Cock" (2 texts)
Palmer-EnglishCountrySongbook, "Oh, Once I Loved a Lass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Purslow-MarrowBones, p. 52, "The Light of the Moon" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brocklebank/Kindersley-DorsetBookOfFolkSongs, p. 7, "Oh, Once I Loved a Lass" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #21234
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Grey Cock, or "Saw You My Father" [Child 248] (theme: night visit ended prematurely by a crowing cock) and references there
cf. "Seventeen Come Sunday" [Laws O17] (theme: night visit ended prematurely by a crowing cock) [viz., "My Rolling Eye"/"A Waukrife Minnie"]
cf. "Rise Up Quickly and Let Me In (The Ghostly Lover)" (theme: night visit ended by a crowing cock)
NOTES [208 words]: The description should make this seem like a ballad that glues together parts of other songs that do not usually float.
There are lines shared with Child 248, "The Grey Cock": "When I came to my true love's door I knocked both loud and sure, My love she arose and slipped on her clothes And came down to let me in"; "...[kept] a cock And it crowed in the morning so soon My love she thought 'twas day and she hastened me away But it proved to be the light of the moon." There are lines shared with Laws O3, "The Foggy Dew": "All the fore-part of the night We did both sport and play And all the last part of the night She sleeped in my arms till day" There's a line and a half of "Westron Wynde" -- "in my true love's arms And she in her bed again" -- and other familiar lines and half lines: "When I beheld my true love's charms", "I took her around her middle so small", "The wind it did blow and the cocks they did crow", "tripped over the plain", "I'll prove so true to my own love", "As the stars all in the sky". There is final couplet that I don't yet remember seeing elsewhere and like some others in the song it does not rhyme with the preceding couplet: "If she should not prove the same [true] by me, She's far better lost than found." - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: ReCi059

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