Annotation:True love can ne'er forget
X:1 T:True love can ne'er forget M:2/4 L:1/8 R:Air S:O’Neill – Music of Ireland (1903), No. 88 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion Q:"Moderate" K:G D|G2 AB|A>G Ez|D2 GB|d>c A2|G2 AB|A>G Ez| D2 B>A|G2z||d|d>d cB|c>B A2|B>B AG|A>G F2| GG A>G|FB Ad|^cB A>F|D2 EF|G2 AB|A>G Ez| D2 GB|d>c Az|G2 AB|{B}A>G Ez|DB {B}A>G|G2 z||
TRUE LOVE CAN NE'ER FORGET (Ni dearmadeann fiorgrad). Irish, Air (2/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. Paul de Grae writes:
This is probably the air to wikipedia:Samuel_Lover's song of the same title: it does, at least, fit the words. The subject of the song is Carolan's meeting, after many years, with his first love, Bridget Cruise; but the air is not one of the several Carolan compositions dedicated to Bridge Cruise, and it may have been composed by Lover.[1].
It is said that Carolan, the Irish bard, years after his loss of sight and the lapse of twenty years, recognized his first love by the touch of her hand. Lover's 1837 song begins:
True love can ne'er forget
Fondly as when we met
Dearest I love thee yet, my darling one!
Thus sung a minstrel grey
His sweet impassiond lay
Down by the Ocean's spray
At rise of sun
But wither'd was the minstrel's sight
Morn to him was dark as night
Yet his heart was full of light
As he this lay begun
