Come all you maids that live at a distance,
Many miles from off your swain,
Come and assist me this very moment
For to pass away some time.
Singing sweetly and completely
Songs of pleasure and of love,
For my heart is with him altogether,
Though I live not where I love.

When I sleep I dream about you
When I wake I take no rest,
For every instant thinking on you,
My heart e'er fixed in your breast
And although far distance may be assistance
From my mind his love to remove
But my heart is with him altogether
Though I live not where I love

All the world shall be one religion
All living things shall cease to die
Before I prove false unto my jewel
Or any way my love deny.
The world shall change and be most strange
If ever I my mind remove
My heart is with him altogether
Though I live not where I love.

So farewell lads and farewell lasses
Now I think I've got my choice
I will away to yonder mountains
Where I think I hear his voice
And if he holloa I will follow
Around the world though 'tus so wide
For young Thomas he did promise
I should be his lawful bride.

abc | midi | pdf

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Source: Marrowbones, ed. Frank Purslow. EFDS Publications, 1965

Notes:
Hammond D.219, Robert Barratt, Piddletown, Dorset, Sept 1905
N.B. Piddletown has since been renamed Puddletown. For more details on the renaming, see the forum discussion listed below.

Some small modifications have been made to Mr. Barrett's text, and his third verse has been moved to the end.

William Chappell (Popular Music of the Olden Time, 1859; vol.II pp.451-3 and 782) discusses the song and quotes a text from the family tradition (presumably) of the writer and critic Hazlitt, which is quite close to our text here. Broadsides of 1638 (Peter Lowberry) and c.1640 (Martin Parker) appear to be ancestral (though sung to a different tune); particularly the former, The Constant Lover, which begins:

You loyall Lovers that are distant
from your Sweet-hearts many a mile,
Pray come helpe me at this instant
In mirth to spend away the while
In singing sweetly, and compleately,
In commendation of my love;
Resolving ever to part never,
though I live not where I love.

Information from The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music, Claude M. Simpson, 1966. Bruce Olson quotes the full text in the Scarce Songs 2 file at his website: I Live Not Where I Love.

Later broadside editions are shorter, and close to the known traditional sets, of which W.P. Merrick and Cecil Sharp both noted examples. At �  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

Young Thomas Printed between 1820 and 1824 for W. Armstrong, Banastre-street [Liverpool]. Harding B 28(180).

I live not where I love Printed between 1814 and 1850 by C. Croshaw, Printer, Coppergate, York. Harding B 25(882).

I live not where I love Printed between 1819 and 1844 by Pitts, wholesale Toy and Marble warehouse, 6, Gt. St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials [London]. Harding B 11(39).

Roud: 593 (Search Roud index at VWML) Take Six
Laws:
Child: