Newcastle


Come you not from Newcastle
Come you there far away
Oh, met you not my true love
Who dwells near Dublin bay

Why should I not love my love
Why shouldn’t my love love me
Why should I not speed after her
Since love to all is free

Her father once my true friend
Now turns me from the door
Her mother wrote me worthy
Now bids me love no more

Her squire once my true friend
But now my rival be
While I, Willy, madly rail away
To sail the stormy sea

In spite of flame and danger
With her Willy she will roam
My arms are safe defenders
Her breast my happy home



Notes


We learned this song from Seán Fitzgerald of The Deadlians, whose mother Pauline sang it to him as a child. The tune was first published in ‘The English Dancing Master’ (1651) where it is simply entitled ‘Newcastle’, while the words may be related to a broadside ballad printed in 1620 and entitled ‘The contented Couckould, Or a pleasant new Songe of a New-Castle man whose wife being gon from him, shewing how he came to London to her, & when he found her carried her backe againe to New-Castle Towne.’