Annotation:How Can the Tree

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 HOW CAN THE TREE. English, Air (cut time). G Dorian. Standard tuning (fiddle). ABC. The air appears in W. Barley's New Books of Tabliture (1596), a lute MSS in the University of Cambridge Library, and Giles Earle's Songbook (1626). How can the tree but waste and wither away,  That hath not sometime comfort of the sunne: How can the flower but fade and soon decay, That always is with darke cloudes overrunne. ''Is this a life? Nay, death I may it call,'' That feeles each paine & knowes noe joye at all.  Source for notated version:  Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 1, 1859; pp. 72-73.  Recorded sources:

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