Annotation:My love is an arbutus

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MY LOVE IS AN ARBUTUS. AKA and see "Coola Shore," "I rise in the morning with my heart full of woe." Irish, Air. D Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. An arbutus is a genus (Arbutus) of shrubs and trees of the heath family with white or pink flowers and red or orange berries. This air can be found in George Petrie's collection of Irish airs as "I rise in the morning with my heart full of woe, identified as a County Cavan air. Words to the song were written by Anglo-Irish poet Alfred Perceval Graves (1846–1931), and begin:

My love’s an arbutus,
By the borders of Lene;
So slender and shapely,
In her girdle of green.
And I measure the pleasure,
Of her eye’s sapphire sheen;
By the blue skies that sparkle,
Through the soft branching screen.

An instrumental version of the song can be heard in the 1951 film version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, starring Alister Sim, as background music during all scenes involving the character 'Alice'.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Stanford (The National Song Book), 1906; p. 143.

Recorded sources: Green Linnet SIF-1051, Jackie Daly, Seamus & Manus McGuire - "Buttons and Bows" (1984). See also listing at:
Hear the song sung by the Innsingers [1]