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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