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This song was recorded live in The Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, St Hilda’s College as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival in 2006.
Click here to listen to this song performed by Sophie Daneman and Julius Drake.
Text
A melancholy lay
English source:
Marjory Fleming
Three Turkeys fair their last have breathed
And now this worled for ever leaved
Their father and their mother too
Will sigh and weep as well as you
Mourning for their offspring fair
Whom they did nurse with tender care
Indeed the rats their bones have cranch'd
To Eternity are they launched
Their graceful form and pretty eyes
Their fellow fowls did not despise
A direful death indeed they had
That would put any parent mad
But she was more than usual calm
She did not give a single dam
Here ends this melancholy lay
Farewell poor turkeys I must say
And now this worled for ever leaved
Their father and their mother too
Will sigh and weep as well as you
Mourning for their offspring fair
Whom they did nurse with tender care
Indeed the rats their bones have cranch'd
To Eternity are they launched
Their graceful form and pretty eyes
Their fellow fowls did not despise
A direful death indeed they had
That would put any parent mad
But she was more than usual calm
She did not give a single dam
Here ends this melancholy lay
Farewell poor turkeys I must say
