Isle of Cloy- Hill and Waspe (Suf) 1931 Moeran
[From: Six Suffolk Folk Songs (Curwen London 1932). See also MOERAN: Folksong Arrangement No. 18. E.J. Moeran (1894-1950) was one of the outstanding British composers of his generation.
There are some glaring textual changes made by the singers or from the folk process which I've footnoted. Notes from Mainly Norfolk follow.
The Isle of Cloy is a mishearing of Auchnacloy. It's a variant of "Cruel Father" which begins "A squire's daughter near Aclecloy."
"A prefatory note states that the songs were noted down from the singing of George Hill of Earl Stonham and Oliver Waspe of Coddenham. They were worked on at Ipswich and are thus another product of his prolonged convalescence there" (from: The Music of E.J. Moeran, page 80; by Geoffrey Self- 1986).
R. Matteson 2017]
A.L. Lloyd sang this song in 1956 on his Tradition album The Foggy Dew and Other Traditional English Love Songs. He commented in the liner notes:
The 18th century was an age of country idyll in England. Science was making fields more fertile, stock more stout than ever before. Stubbs was painting his fat farmers on fat horses. An air of prosperity blew over the acres. And perhaps the labourers began to dream of getting some of the prosperity for themselves, for instance by marrying the squire's daughter. Whatever the reason, the story of the servant boy shanghaied to sea by the sweetheart's rich parents came to be the common theme of 18th century folksong. The Isle of Troy, a song from the east coast of England, offers an unusually dramatic denouement, with the bereft girl hanging from a beam in the cruel father's bedroom.
The Isle of Cloy- sung by George Hill of Earl Stonham and Oliver Waspe of Coddenham while they worked at Ipswich. Collected by E.J. Moeran about 1931.
It’s of a lady in the Isle of Cloy,
She fell in love with her serving boy.
Soon as her parents came to hear,
They separated her from her dear.
So to [not] disgrace her whole family,
They sent this young man across the sea
On board the Tiger, a man o’war,
To act his part like some gallant tar.
This young man hadn’t long been upon the main
Before a cruel fight began.
It was his sad luck to fall–
He got struck dead by a cannon ball.
The very same night this young man was slain,
Close to her father’s bedside she came[1].
With heavy sighs and bitter groans,
Close to her father’s bed she stole.
As she stood weeping, scarce could refrain,
The tears rolled down from her eyes like rain.
All weeping sore for her own true love,
She hanged herself from the beam above.
The squire’s servants they stood around–
They viewed this lady and cut her down;
And in her bosom a note unsealed:
A girl of sorrow it revealed.
‘My father is one of the best[worst] of men,
But he’s drove me to this disgraceful end.
And of this vain world pray a warning take:
I died a maid for my true love’s sake.’
1."he" came- it's the ghost of her lover haunting her father. "he" throughout the stanza.