> Steeleye Span > Songs > One True Love

One True Love

[ Roud 51 ; Child 78 ; Ballad Index C078 ; trad.]

Steeleye Span sang One True Love on their CD Horkstow Grange. Tim Harries commented in the liner notes:

The sources for this song are The Unquiet Grave, (spooky old English song), Lovely Joan, and a small fragment of Lowlands of Holland. The inspiration came largely from Borrowed Time by Paul Monette, a book you may be familiar with.

Lyrics

Cold blows the wind o'er my true love,
Cold blows the drops of rain,
I never had but one true love
And never will again.

I'll do as much for my true love
As any lover may,
I'll sit and weep down by his grave
A twelve-month in one day.

One kiss, one kiss from your sweet lips,
One kiss is all I grave.
One kiss, one kiss from your sweet lips,
And sink down in your grave.

And your lips, they are not sweet my love
Your kiss is cold as clay,
My time be long, my time be short,
Tomorrow or today.

And down beyond the garden wall,
Where we both used to walk,
Are finest flowers that ever grew
All withered to a stalk.

(repeat first verse)