Annotation:I have but a mark a year

Back to I have but a mark a year

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I HAVE BUT A MARK A YEAR. English, Air (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. According to Chappell, the tune appears in Pills to Purge Melancholy (1700 and later editions). In the Roxburghe Collection it is called "A Fair Portion for a Fair Maid" and also "The Praise of Nothing."

Now all my friends are dead and gone,
Alas! What will betide me,
For I, poor maid, am left alone,
Without a house to hide me.

Yet still I’ll be of merry cheer,
And have kind welcome ev’rywhere,
Though I have but a mark a year,
And that my mother gave me.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 2, 1859; p. 86.

Recorded sources:

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