I have seen the tune identified as "My Dear and Only Love, Take Heed," found in John Gamble's Commonplace Book from 1659, but I haven't been able to verify that it is the same tune that I heard on Louis Killen's recording. Louis Killen attributes the work to Robert Surtees, who apparently wrote the poem in 1807, and sent it to Walter Scott in the guise of a traditional ballad. I have seen it called "Child 208," but that appears to be a completely different ballad about the same Lord Derwentwater. I pretty much remembered the tune from Louis Killen's recording on "Old Songs, Old Friends," Front Hall Records FHR-012, Voorheesville, NY, 1978. I took the tune from "Derwentwater's Farewell," and mangled it to fit Wilde's 6-line stanzas instead of the 8 lines of the original tune. Prisoner C.3.3, known outside of prison as Oscar Wilde, wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Why not take the title on its face, and sing the poem as a ballad? "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," sung as a ballad.
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