If you would like to use our texts and translations, please click here for more information.
Text
In the Spring
English source:
William Barnes
My love is the maid of all maidens
Though all may be comely,
Her skin’s like the jasmine blossom
A-spread in the Spring.
Her smile is so sweet as a baby’s
Young smile on his mother,
Her eyes be as bright as the dew-drop
A-shed in the Spring.
O grey-leafy pinks o’ the garden,
Now bear her sweet blossoms;
Now deck with a rosebud, O briar,
Her head in the Spring.
O light-rolling wind blow me hither,
The voice of her talking,
O bring from her feet the light dust,
She do tread in the Spring.
O sun make the kingcups all glitter
In gold all around her;
And make of the daisies white flowers
A bed in the Spring.
O whistle gay birds, up beside her,
In pathway, and woodlands,
O sing, swinging lark, now the clouds
Be a-fled in the Spring.
An’ who, you may ask, be my praises
A-making so much of,
An’ oh! ‘tis the maid I’m a hoping
To wed in the Spring.
Though all may be comely,
Her skin’s like the jasmine blossom
A-spread in the Spring.
Her smile is so sweet as a baby’s
Young smile on his mother,
Her eyes be as bright as the dew-drop
A-shed in the Spring.
O grey-leafy pinks o’ the garden,
Now bear her sweet blossoms;
Now deck with a rosebud, O briar,
Her head in the Spring.
O light-rolling wind blow me hither,
The voice of her talking,
O bring from her feet the light dust,
She do tread in the Spring.
O sun make the kingcups all glitter
In gold all around her;
And make of the daisies white flowers
A bed in the Spring.
O whistle gay birds, up beside her,
In pathway, and woodlands,
O sing, swinging lark, now the clouds
Be a-fled in the Spring.
An’ who, you may ask, be my praises
A-making so much of,
An’ oh! ‘tis the maid I’m a hoping
To wed in the Spring.
Composer
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. Over sixty years, he composed operas, ballets, chamber music, vocal pieces and orchestral compositions. He was strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song. Information from Wikipedia.…
Poet
William Barnes
William Barnes was an English writer, poet, Church of England priest, and philologist. He wrote over 800 poems, including some in Dorset dialect.