Annotation:Sweet Little Cuckoo (The)
X:1 T:Sweet Little Cuckoo, The M:C| L:1/8 R:Air B:Frank Roche - Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 1 (1912, No 63, p. 30) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D A2|dcde d2 (FG)|AFEF A2 (3ABc|dcBA F2 (EE)|F2 (Bc) B2:| B|Bcde f2f2|gfdf e2 (3ABc|dcde dcBA|AFEF A2 (3ABc| dcde d2 (FG)|AFEF A2 (3ABc|dcBA F2 (.E.E)|F2 (Bc) B4||
SWEET LITTLE CUCKOO, THE (An Cuicin/Chuicin bInn). Irish, Air (cut time). D Major/B Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. George Sigerson printed a poem called "The Sweet Little Cuckoo" in his volume Bards of the Gael and Gall: Examples of the Poetic Literature of Erinn (1907, p. 307), which may have some association with Roche's melody. The translated first stanza goes:
'Tis in the night I suffer woe,
Within my heart my shadows go,
Since I feel in love with my fair foe--
The faultless high- bred maiden.
O God, that fate, in an hour of ruth,
Would bear us both to the Land of Youth,
Then days of delight would dawn in sooth!
Friends and foes should stay behind,
Suitors and sorrows go in the wind,
And some cold isle be laid it.
