2. Songs of Love Inconstant.
[She was Happy till She Met You], 4aa5b4cc5b4dd5e4ff5e and 4ababcc5b, 2: A husband forsakes his wife; later, becoming repentant, he returns to seek her at the house of her mother, who forbids him access to her.
[Bedroom Window], 4abcb, 5: The lover by night calls his sweetheart to awake. She warns him away, saying that her father is armed to repulse his presence. He vows to have her for his own. A suggestion of his sinister motive closes the song.
I'll Hang My Harp on a Willow Tree, ii, 4a3b4a3b4c3d4c3d, 3: A lover voices his resolve to forsake the charms of his fickle mistress to court a warrior's fate at the Saracen's hand on the field of Palestine.
There was a Rich Old Farmer, ii, 3abcb, 9ca: The singer recites his farewell to father and sweetheart to seek his fortune, and his faith in her—until a letter arrives telling of her marriage to another man.
Jack and Joe, 4a3b4b3c and 4a3b4b3c, 3ca: Both are sailors, away from home. Jack, returning first, is commissioned by Joe to kiss his sweetheart Nellie for him. When Joe returns, like Miles Standish, he finds that Jack and she are married.
All on the Banks of Clauda, 3abcb, 10: By this stream the poet overhears a maiden's complaint against her fickle Johnny. Like Oenone, she prays the mountain to hear her, and implores Cupid to fire his heart anew.
The Auxville Love, 4aabb, 6: A merchant's daughter, "in Auxville town or Delaware," love-lorn, gathers flowers, Ophelia-like, and dies under a green pine on the mountain.
Cuckoo, ii, 4aabb, 5ca: A love-lorn maiden's warning to her sex not to be deceived, as she, by false men in springtime when the cuckoo calls.
We have Met and We have Parted, ii, 4abcb and 4abcb, 5ca: A maiden's scornful farewell to her fickle lover, as she returns him the presents and letters he has sent her.
If I had Minded Mamma, 3abcb and 3abcb, 6: A maiden's regret that she has been deluded by a faithless lover:
He is like the blue-birds ever
That flies from tree to tree;
And when he sees another girl
He never thinks of me.
I Used to Love, 4abcb and 4abcb, 4: A maiden voices her complaint against the "dark-eyed girl," her successful rival, and her wish for "coffin, shroud, and grave," to end her woe.
The Butcher's Boy, iii, 4aabb, 8ca: A maiden voices her complaint against the New York butcher's boy, once her childhood playmate and lover, who now has forsaken her for a wealthier girl; then goes upstairs and hangs herself, leaving a note pinned on her breast.
The Pale Amaranthus, 4aabb, 5: A maiden's complaint against her faithless lover, whom she vows to forget.
I have Finished Him a Letter, 4abcb and 4abcb, 7: A maiden's complaint against her lover, who has forsaken her for Annie Lee.
Can You then Love Another?, ii, 3abcbdefe and 3abcb, 3: A lorn maiden's plaint:
Say, must I be forgotten,
Cast like a flower aside?
Have I from memory faded,
Once all your joy and pride?
To Cheer the Heart, ii, 3abcbdefe and 3abcbdede, 4: A maiden's complaint against her faithless lover. He is the son of a "rich merchant," she, the daughter of a "laboring man." "But why need I care? For I have another man."
A Poor Strange Girl, 4aabb, 7: The poet one May morning overhears a damsel complaining against her faithless lover, and against her loss of friends and home.
Pretty Polly, 4aabb, 5: A lover recites his visit one evening to her home, where he sees his rivals enjoying her company. He retires to a grove, sucks comfort from his whiskey bottle, and wishes that she were drowned, floating on the tide, that he, like a fisherman, might draw her in his net to shore.
Hang Down Your Head and Cry, 4aabb, 2: A fragment (two quatrains), apparently a complaint of a lover to his faithless sweetheart.
The Dying Girl's Message, ii, 4abcb, 15: Her death-song to her mother, breathing forgiveness for her faithless lover, and closing with a vision of Christ waiting to receive her.
A second version contains only an elaboration of this last motif.
The Cold, Dark Scenes of Winter, 3abcb, 9: In the winter the lover woos his fair, but is rejected. In the spring, her mind changing, she writes him of her love for him. He replies that meanwhile his heart has changed in turn and that he is already married to another.
Loving Hanner, 3abcb, 9: The lover sings his devotion to her, but in the face of her coolness and her parents' opposition, vows to go on a long voyage to try to forget her—but in vain.
My Bonnie Little Girl, 4a3b4c3b, 4: Courting her too slow, the singer finds his sweetheart has fled with another man.
Lovely Nancy, ii, 4aabb, 5ca: A bachelor's warning against "courting too slow": Sweet William goes on a voyage; meanwhile Nancy, his sweetheart, writes him of her marriage to another. William dies of grief and Nancy, of remorse.
I'm Scorned for being Poor (Vain Girl), 3abcb, 8: A lover's farewell to his sweetheart, who has forsaken him to be married to a wealthy stranger from New England.
Little Nellie, 4a3b4c3b, 8: She forsakes her lover, the singer, to marry wicked, wealthy Mr. Brown, who is a drunkard—and dies of a broken heart.
The Squire, 2abcb, 10: The wealthy young squire, being rejected in love by pretty Sally, vows to dance on her grave when she dies.
Little Sparrow (A Regret), ii, 4abcb, 5ca: A complaint of a love-lorn maiden warning her kind against the faithlessness of all men.
The Awful Wedding, 4abcb, 7: At the marriage feast each guest is asked for a song. The bride's former lover sings his unchanging affection for her. She swoons and spends the night in her mother's bed, where she is found dead the next morning.
The Young Man's Love, 2aa, 9: The singer one evening overhears a young man lamenting the faithlessness of his sweetheart, who scorns him for his poverty.
[Maggie], 3a3b4c3b and 2abab (approximately), 7: A story of Maggie, the constant wife, who seeks in bar-room and dry-goods store her faithless husband, who has eloped with Lula Fry. Failing to find him, she wanders to the cemetery, and thence to the railroad trestle, where she is killed by train No. Four.
Joe Hardy, 4a3b4c3b, 6: A maiden's explanation to her jilted lover that when she plighted her troth in Bangor, she had not then met Joe Hardy, whom she now adores.