In the Meadows- Will Nichols (Devon) c.1825
[My title. Fragment from Baring-Gould's MS, F version in his MS and his third version of the song he titled, "Deep in Love."
R. Matteson 2017]
[In the Meadows] Taken down from Will Nichols, Whitchurch, May 29 1891: his grandmother’s song from about 1825. Whitchurch is a village and civil parish just to the south-east of the town of Tavistock, Devon, England.
In the meadow t’other day
Plucking flowers both fine & gay
Plucking flowers red, white & blue
I little thought what love could do.
Where love is planted there it grows
It buds and blossoms like a rose
It bears a sweet & pleasant smell
There’s not a flower can it excel.
Ten thousand ladies in the room
My love she is the fairest bloom
[Surely she must be some chosen one,]
I said I would have her or none.