Annotation:Hard is the fate of him who loves

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HARD IS THE FATE OF HIM WHO LOVES. AKA and see "Huntingtone Castle." Scottish, Air (3/4 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The tune is "Huntingtone Castle" from fiddler-composer John Bowie's A Collection of Strathspey Reels & Country Dances (Edinburgh, 1789). Verses attributed (by John Glen) to Scottish poet James Thomson [1] (1700-1748) were set to it and published in volume VI of publisher James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (Song 590, p. 610). The first stanza begins:

Hard is the fate of him who loves,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,
But to the sympathetic groves,
But to the lonely list'ning plain.
Oh, when she blesses next your shade,
Oh, when her footsteps next are seen,
In flow'ry tracts along the mead,
In fresher mazes o'er the green.

Thomson was the author of the four-volume poetical work The Seasons, but is also remembered for his work in collaboration with David Mallet on the masque Alfred (1740), first performed at Cliveden, the country home of Frederick, Prince of Wales. A song in the play was called "Rule Britannia," set to music by Thomas Arne, which became one of the foremost of British patriotic songs.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, vol. 1), 1853; p. 152.

Recorded sources:

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