Annotation:When absent from the Nymph I love

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WHEN ABSENT FROM THE NYMPH I LOVE. Scottish, Air (whole time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. The words to the song "When absent from the Nymph I love" are thought to be the work of poet Allan Ramsay, who published them in his Tea-Table Miscellany, vol. 2 (1724-27). Stenhouse says the air was formerly called "O Jean, I love thee," but that the words to this older song were thought to be lost. There is an English version of the Scottish song, written by Thomas Southerne (set to music by Thomas Farmer) for the comedy The Disappointment, or Mother of Fashion', staged in London in 1684, which Stenhouse supposes was familiar to Ramsay. The English song was printed by Henry Playford in 1685 in his Theater of Musick, Book 1 (p. 5), to a different tune, and goes:

When absent from the nymph I love,
I'd fain resolve to love no more;
Tho' reason would my flame remove,
My love-sick heart will still adore.
My weak endeavours are in vain,
They vanish soon as they return;
I by one look relapse again,
And in a raging fever burn.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book V), 1760; p. 30. Thomson (Orpheus Caledonius, vol. 2), 1733; No. 22, p. 54.

Recorded sources:

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