Three English FolkSongs

The Crystal Spring
As I Was Going to Banbury
Sweet Europe
As I walked out one May morning in Spring,
To hear the birds whistle and the colley bird sing,
I heard a fair damsel a-making her moan,
Saying: I am a stranger so far from my home.

O where is your country, I long for to know?
And what the misfortunes that you undergo,
That cause you to wander so far from your home,
And make you to weep in the deserts alone?

The lads of sweet Europe they're stout roving blades;
They delight them in courting and in kissing pretty maids.
They'll kiss them and court them and swear they'll be true,
And the very next moment they will go and leave you.

Their eyes were afire and as black as a coal;
And through my poor bosom they burnt a big hole.
They praised me, caressed me, and told many lies
As the hairs on my head or the stars in the skies.

Believe me, dear Jewel, the case is not so,
There's a lad in sweet Europe, I'd have you to know,
He will love you so truly and never will roam,
And has no other sweetheart a-mourning at home.