I cannot raise my voice in joy
Here’s why no pleasure I sing
My love said he would come with the snow
And now it’s flowering spring.
Song nine. This song is a standard trope: “I trusted my true love and I laid with him and he promised he would be back and he’s not and I am now bitter.”
It’s not nuanced, it’s got the basic bitterness of “my love left me” that has been expressed for centuries and a chord progression that also has been around for centuries to go with it.
I cannot raise my voice in joy
Here’s why no pleasure I sing
My love said he would come with the snow
And now it’s flowering spring.
Long I sat by my window
Watching the growing blooms
Sweeping the hearth, tending the fire
And staring at waning moons
Waiting
I’m waiting
I’m waiting so long
And this is why I will not sing
Any merry song.
I cannot raise my voice in joy
Here’s why no pleasure I sing
My love said he would come with the snow
And now it’s flowering spring.
At harvest, he pledged his love to me
Upon a field of green
He swore he’d be the best of man
Than ever had been seen.
Wholly,
I wholly,
I wholly pledged and prayed
He promised he’d return to me
And so with him, I laid.
I cannot raise my voice in joy
Here’s why no pleasure I sing
My love said he would come with the snow
And now it’s flowering spring.
Where has my true love now gone
No, not a love that’s true
For he’s proven he’s my false love
Though the first I ever knew.
Seeing
I’m seeing
I’m seeing clear today
My false love has abandoned me
No matter what he did say.
I cannot raise my voice in joy
Here’s why no pleasure I sing
My love said he would come with the snow
And now it’s flowering spring.
No wars have come to take him away
Nearby is no wild sea.
There’s only towns and work and maids
That proved fairer than me.
Bitter,
I’m bitter
I’m bitter and alone
No songs of love will cross my lips
Till he is dead or home.
I cannot raise my voice in joy
Here’s why no pleasure I sing
My love said he would come with the snow
And now it’s flowering spring.