Annotation:Sweet Transports
SWEET TRANSPORTS. English, Air (4/4 time). D Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Sweet Transports" is an air contained in uilleann piper O'Farrell's collection published in London around 1810. O'Farrell's collection included a good number of Irish tunes, but also included Scottish and English melodies as well. In this case, the air is from a song in the opera Rosina, staged in London in 1783 with music by Wikipedia:William Shield (1748-1828) and written by Mrs. Brooke. The words to the song begin:
Sweet transports. gentle wishes go, in vain his charms have gain'd my heart,
Since fortune still to love a foe, and cruel duty bid us part
Ah! why does duty chain the mind, and part those souls which love had join'd?
The song was reprinted in period songsters and was entered into a few musicians' manuscript collections on both sides of the Atlantic.
