Annotation:I have but a mark a year
Tune properties and standard notation
I HAVE BUT A MARK A YEAR. English, Air (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. According to Chappell, the tune appears in Pills to Purge Melancholy (1700 and later editions). In the Roxburghe Collection it is called "A Fair Portion for a Fair Maid" and also "The Praise of Nothing."
Now all my friends are dead and gone, Alas! What will betide me, For I, poor maid, am left alone, Without a house to hide me.
Yet still I’ll be of merry cheer, And have kind welcome ev’rywhere, Though I have but a mark a year, And that my mother gave me.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Times), vol. 2, 1859; p. 86.
Recorded sources: