[lit-ideas] The Seeds of Love
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:19:53 -0400 (EDT)
Lit-Ideas is considering, with D. Ritchie, gardening.
Here, from 1903:
J. England, Hambridge, Somerset.
I sowed the seeds of love
and I sowed them in the Spring
I gathered them up in the morning so soon
while the small birds do sweetly sing.
[a few stanzas about different flowers]
The willow tree will twist
and the willow tree will twine.
I have oftentimes wished I was in that young man's arms
that once had the heart of mine.
And so on (*).
Rather beautiful.
Cheers,
Speranza
---
(*)
I sowed the seeds of love
and I sowed them in the Spring.
I gathered them up in the morning so soon
while the small birds do sweetly sing.
my garden was planted well
with flowers everywhere,
but I had not the liberty to choose for myself
of the flowers that I love so dear.
the gardener was standing by
and I asked him to choose for me.
he choosed for me the violet, the lily and the pink,
but those I refused all three.
the violet I did not like
because it bloomed so soon.
the lily and the pink I really overthink;
so I vowed that I'd stay till June.
In June there was red rose-bud
and that's the flower for me
I oftentimes have plucked that red rose-bud
Till I gained the willow tree.
The willow tree will twist
and the willow tree will twine.
I have oftentimes wished I was in that young man's arms
that once had the heart of mine.
Come all you false young men,
Do not leave me here to complain,
For the grass that have been oftentimes trampled underfoot,
Give it time it will rise up again.
Noted by Cecil Sharp from John England, in Hambridge, Somerset, in 1903.
Sharp was sitting in the vicarage garden talking to Charles Marson, when he
heard John England quietly singing to himself as he mowed the vicarage
lawn. Cecil Sharp whipped out his notebook and took down the tune; and then
persuaded John to give him the words. He immediately harmonised the song; and
that same evening it was sung at a choir supper by Mattie Kay, Cecil Sharp
accompanying. The audience was delighted; as one said, it was the first
time that the song had been put into evening dress." The song has been
widespread in England in various forms and under many different names, also
turning up in the USA and Scotland. William Chappell (Popular Music of the
Olden
Time, 1859), names it, along with Cupid's Garden and Early One Morning, as
"one of the three most popular songs among the servant-maids of the
present generation", and mentions its appearance on the London stage, sung by
Mrs. Honey, in a play entitled The Loan of a Lover. He also quotes a passage
from Whittaker's History of the Parish of Whalley (1801) which ascribes the
lyric to a Mrs. Fleetwood Habergham, of Habergham Hall, Lancashire, who is
supposed to have written the song to console herself when, in 1689, her
husband's extravagances finally led to the loss of the family's estates. This
apocryphal story is not generally taken too seriously nowadays. There are
two broadside examples at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, the more
legible being Harding B 11(1657): I sowed the seeds of love Printed between
1819
and 1844 by J. Pitts, wholesale Toy and Marble warehouse, 6, Gt. St.
Andrew Street, Seven Dials [London]. In his Additions and Corrections to
vol.V
of the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Child quotes material
supplementary to no.219, The Gardener, which Baring Gould had sent him; two
Scottish texts of Braw Sailing, and Dead Maid's Land from Devon, all of which
overlap to some degree with both song-groups; Steve Roud's Folk Song Index
assigns them to the Seeds of Love group rather than to Child 219 (Roud 339);
which would presumably be current consensus. Ewan MacColl (Travellers' Songs
from England and Scotland, R & K P, 1977) suggests that the Seeds of Love/
Sprig of Thyme group is a worn-down lyric descendant of the ballad, which he
considers to be Scottish in origin. This does not seem to be an opinion
generally held.
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