Help with finding some songs, please?

[Dance_Dance]

I was in the high school chior for a couple of years (I wasn't that good, but it was fun).  Most of the time we had to sing religious songs because the only places that we could regularly hold concerts would be in churches.  Every once and awhile, though, we'd get an "off the wall" peice.

I love two of these songs but I have never heard them sung anywhere else.  I don't know much about them. One is called "The Dream Tree" and the other is "Lass of the Low Country."  I don't know who first wrote them but I know for a fact that the second one is Irish because our chior teacher tried to get us to sing with a little bit an Irish accent (he was a stickler for such things).  The first one could be Irish, but I really don't have a clue.

I've typed the lyrics to the best of my abilities (the line breaks are guessed on my part due to the rhyming and how we sang the songs).  I understand that these might not be Ren music, but I figured if anyone can recognize these beautiful songs, it'd be someone on this site.  If you want, I can send you the recording of these done by our chior through e-mail.

Any info on these songs - even where they came from or who might've sung them - will be helpful.

Thank you,
- Dance

Here's the lyrics of them:

The Dream Tree

Lo, how the dream tree is crying and shaking
Pretty dream fall down on thee
Lo, how my poor heart is dying and aching
Longing for one who is longing for me

Chorus:
Women sing their songs of safe returning
For their men
Let him hold me one day
And someday
Touch my hair again

I sit at home with my hand on the craddle
Back to the fire and eyes to the sea
I sit at hom with my hand on the craddle
Rocking the love he has given to me

Chorus

Long are the hours and long is the waiting
Many a-candle to stand and be burned
Women of whalers and women sailors
Soon know the meaning of worry and yearn

Chorus (x2)


Lass from the Low Country

Oh, he was a lord of high degree
And she was a lass from the low country
But she loved her lordship so tenderly

Chorus:
Oh, sorrow, sorrow, sweet sorrow
Now she sleep in the valley where the wild flowers nod
And no one knows she loved him but herself and God

One morn' when the sun was on the mead
He pass'd her door on a milk white steed
She smiled and she spoke - but he paid no heed

Chorus

If you be a maid from the low country
Don't love of no lord of high degree
They ain't got a heart for sympathy

Chorus

[Katarsa]

Google says the latter is sung by Nina Simone, though Joan Baez did a recording.

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-lass-from-the-low-country
says that it was composed 1910-1949ish by John Jacob Niles....

When lookin' for folk songs- mudcat.com or digitaltradition is a real good database.

[Dance_Dance]

Thank you very much, Katarsa! ^_^  I had actually given up on the search. lol.