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Blow ye Winds

[ Roud 2106 , 24883 ; VWML RoudFS/S156127 , SBG/1/8/18 ; trad.]

Magpie Lane sang Blow ye Winds in 2017 on their CD Three Quarter Time. They noted:

Jon [Fletcher] came across Blow ye Winds in Sabine Baring-Gould’s A Garland of Country Song (1895) [VWML RoudFS/S156127] . There it is titled “O love is hot, and love is cold”, while the song was published on an eighteenth century broadside as The Effects of Love. Jon’s version combines the lyrics printed in the book—some of which we suspect the collector might have made up himself—with verses collected by Baring-Gould from singers in the West Country.

Lyrics

Magpie Lane sing Blow ye Winds

O love is hot, and love is cold,
It is more precious that any gold,
O, it is more precious that any thing
But to my grave it will me being.

Chorus (after each verse):
Then blow, ye winds of winter, blow,
And cover me with frost and snow.
And shake the branches of the tree
And blow the dead leaves all over me.

Now the wind blows east, and the wind blows west,
He never seizes, he takes no rest.
Now he’s like a gale and then he’s like a fan,
Such is the temper of a man.

Now the leaves they grow and the flowers appear,
All in the springtime of the year.
The summer gone, they fall and fade,
Such is the beauty of a maid.

O this little circle of a life,
Is but the turning of a knife,
Where tears forever fill the eye
And every breath ’tis but a sigh.