So, we'll go no more a roving the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights--had knocked me up a little. But it is over--and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music... Though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty nine." The poem seems to have been suggested in part by the refrain of a Scottish song known as "The Jolly Beggar." The Jolly Beggar was published in Herd's "Scots Songs" in 1776, 41 years before Byron's letter, and goes partially
So, we'll go no more a roving thus: He took the lassie in his arms, and to bed he ran,<br> O hooly, hooly wi' me, Sir, ye'll waken our goodman!<br> And we'll go no more a roving<br> Sae late into the night,<br> And we'll gang nae mair a roving, boys,<br> Let the moon shine ne'er sae bright.<br> And we'll gang nae mair a roving.<br> The poem appears as "Go No More A-Roving" on the 2004 Leonard Cohen album, "Dear Heather". It has been recorded by Ariella Uliano on her 2009 album 'A.U. (almost) a Compilation'. It was also recorded by Joan Baez on her 1964 "Joan Baez/5"