The Green Bushes
As I was a-walking one morning in Spring,
To hear the birds whistle and the nightingale sing;
There I behold a fair maid an oh sweetlye sung she,
Down by he green bushes where she chance to meet me. As sung by Harry Brazil, Sanders Lane, Gloucester and Danny Brazil, Over’s Bridge, Gloucester 5 January 1966 and Harry again 1 October 1967 (Springthyme 66.1.8, 66.2.2 & 67.7.48). In: Shepheard, Peter. Folk Songs and Ballads of the Brazil Family of Gloucester (1967).
As I was a-walking one morning in Spring,
To hear the birds whistle and the nightingale sing;
There I behold a fair maid an oh sweetlye sung she,
Down by he green bushes where she chance to meet me.
“I’ll buy you fine beaver and fine silken gowns,
I’ll buy you fine petticoats with the flounce to the ground;
If you will prove ryal be constant and true,
I’ll forsake my own true love and get married to you.”
“I don’t want none of your beavers nor your fine silken gowns,
I don’t want none of your petticoats with the flounce to the ground;
But I will prove ryal be constant and true,
I’ll forsake me own true love and get married to you.”
“Let us be a-going from under these trees,
Oh let us be a-going, young man, if you please;
For yonder’s my true love a-coming I can see,
Down by the green bushes whore he thinks to meet me.
.
Oh when he got there and found she was gone,
He peered like some wee lamb that had been led astray;
She’s gone with another and forsaken of me,
She’s left the green bushes where she vowed she’d meet me.
I’ll go home like some little schoolboy and spend my time in play,
I’ll never be so foolish to be luded away;
No falst hearted young girl will serve me so no more,
Here’s adieu to the green bushes and its time to give o’er.
See notes on the song in JFSS v, 177-80 by Gilchrist & Broadwood. In Greenleaf. The song was used in Buckstone’s play ‘The Green Bushes’ in 1855 and is also similar to a ‘Dialogue between a Town Spark and a Country Lass’ in Carey’s Musical Century (1740). See notes in M. Karpeles Folksongs of Newfoundland. (p290).
As sung by Danny:
As I was a-walking one morning in Spring
To hear the birds whistle and the nightingale sing,
I overheard a fair maid and oh sweetlye sung she,
Down by the green bushes where she thinks to meet me.
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