The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time/Volume 2/The Commonwealth/Love lies bleeding

For other versions of this work, see Love lies a Bleeding.

Love lies bleeding.

This tune is referred to under the various names of Love lies bleeeding, Law lies bleeding, The Cyclops, The Sword, and The power, or The dominion, of the Sword.

In The Loyal Garland, fifth edition, 1686, is “The Dominion of the Sword: A Song made in the Rebellion.” Commencing—

“Lay by your pleading, Law lies a bleeding,
Burn all your studies, and throw away your reading,” &c.

It is also in Loyal Songs, i. 223, 1731 (there entitled “The power of the Sword”); in Merry Drollery complete, 1661 and 1670; in Pills to purge Melancholy, vi. 190; &c.

In the Bagford Collection, a song, “printed at the Hague, for S. Browne, 1659,” is named “Chips of the old Block; or Hercules cleansing the Augean Stable. To the tune of The Sword.” It commences—

“Now you, by your good leave, sirs, shall see the Rump can cleave, sirs,
And what chips from this treacherous block will come, you may conceive, sirs.”

Other copies of this will be found in King’s Pamphlets, vol. xvi.; in Rats rhymed to death, 1660; and in Loyal Songs, ii. 53.

“Love lies a bleeding; in imitation of Law lies a bleeding,” is contained in Merry Drollery complete, 1661 and 1670. There are also copies in ballad form in which the tune is entitled The Cyclops.

“A new Ignoramus: Being the second new song to the same old tune, Law lies a bleeding,” was printed by Charles Leigh in 1681, and included in Rome rhym’d to death, 8vo., 1683. It commences—

“Since Popish plotters joined with bog-trotters,
Sham plots are made as fast as pots are form’d by potters.”

This is included in 180 Loyal Songs, 1685 and 1694, with several other political songs to the same tune. Among them, another “Ignoramus,” beginning—

“Since Reformation with Whigs is in fashion.”

The tune of Love lies bleeding is contained in every edition of The Dancing Master, from and after 1686; in 180 Loyal Songs, 1685 and 1694; in Walsh’s Dancing Master; in Pills to purge Melancholy; &c.

In Shadwell’s Epsom Wells, 1673, Clodpate sings “the old song, Lay by your pleading, Law lies a bleeding;’ and perhaps Whitlock had the other song in his mind when he said, “Both truth and love lie a bleeding.” (Zootomia, or Present Manners of the English, 1654.)

The title of the ballad is “Love lies a bleeding:

By whose mortal wounds you may soon understand,
What sorrow we suffer since love left the land.

To the tune of The Cyclops.”

When we love did nourish, England did flourish,
Till holy hate came in and made us all so currish;
Now every widgeon talks of religion,
But doth as little good as Mahomet and his pigeon.

Each coxcomb is suiting his words for confuting,
But heaven’s sooner gain’d by suff’ring than disputing;
True friendship we smother, and strike at our brother,
Apostles never went to God by killing one another.

He that doth know me, and love will shew me,
Finds the nearest and the noblest way to overcome me;
He that hath bound me, or that doth wound me,
Winneth not my heart, he doth but conquer, not confound me.

In such condition, love is physician,
True love and reason make the purest politician;
But strife and confusion, deceit and delusion,
Though they seem to thrive at first, will make a sad conclusion, &c.