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A Lyke Wake Song words A C Swinburne; tune Greenoaken Fair of face and full of pride Ye sang songs a' the day Proud ye were a' day long Ye had gowd kells on your hair Ye set scorn by the silken stuff Ye set scorn by the rubis ring Fine gold and blithe fair face Gowd hair and glad grey een Fair of face and full of pride Ye sang songs a' the day The poet A C Swinburne (1837-1909), though born in London, had a strong familial and emotional connection to Northumberland. The Swinburne family seat was at Capheaton Hall, where the poet spent his childhood holidays. He developed a deep fascination for the songs of the region, collected and edited many of them, and wrote his own very singable pastiches, of which this is one. From his posthumously-published Ballads Of The English Border. The Lyke Wake was the vigil traditionally kept over a corpse ("lyke/lych/ leich") through the first night of its laying out. As a keen folksong scholar, Swinburne would likely have been familiar with the Cleveland Lyke Wake Dirge and its haunting refrain: "This ae neet, this ae neet / Every neet and all / Fire and fleet and candle-leet / And Christ receive thy saule…" |
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