Thomas Moore’s consolation to a companion whose youth has fled, published in volume 6 of his Irish Melodies (1815) and set, per Moore’s own headnote, to the old Irish air “Sly Patrick.” The instrumental air circulated in 3/4 through O’Neill (1903) and the Roche Collection, while Joyce documented country singers fitting Moore’s words to a different 9/8 air when the “proper” one wasn’t to hand — a nice glimpse of how these songs actually lived. John McCormack recorded it.
