The Prickly Rose- Anon (Buchan) 1850 Christie
[From; Traditional Ballad Airs, William Christie, 1876. Christie's notes follow. Christie's text is very close to printed texts. The order has varied greatly from the broadsides and the 6th stanza "I set my back against an oak" is missing.
R. Matteson 2017]
The first Strain of this Air was sent to the Editor in 1850 by a native of Buchan, And the second Strain he noted from the singing of the old woman referred to p 42. Bunting gives a set of the first Strain of this Air in his "Ancient Music of Ireland," Vol. ll. p. 71. (1811) "I am a poor and rambling Boy." This is no proof that the air is Irish any more than that the air is Irish, which Dr. Petrie noted in 1852 from a fiddler of Leitrim, and gives in his "Ancient Music of Ireland? Vol. I. p. 127, which is merely a set of “O, as I was kist yestreen" (Museum, IV. 330), a well known air in the beginning of the last century under the name,"Lumps of Pudding," not the "Lumps of Pudding" in Gay's "Beggar’s Opera" (about 1726) which borrowed its name. Dr. Patric, forgetting that the Air, “O, as 1 was kist yestreen," had been published long ago, says, “It is very much in the style of Carolan’s best jigs and planxtier, and may very possibly be a work by that prolific composer." The Ballad, "The Prickly Rose‘,’ was long sung, in the Counties of Aberdeen and Banff, to scraps of the Air here given. Twelve lines of the ballad are given by Johnson in the ‘‘Museum" I. 582. (1803) written from the singing of his father, but to an Air different from the one given above.
The Prickly Rose. (From W. Christie, sent to him in 1850, arranged by 1876)
DOWN in yon meadow fresh and gay,
I was pulling flowers the other day;
I was pulling flowers both red and blue,
But I little knew what love could do.
For there love’s planted, and there it grows,
It buds and blooms like any rose,
It has such a sweet and a pleasant smell,
That nought on earth can it excel.
I put my hand into a bush,
Thinking a sweet rose there to find;
But prick’d my fingers to the bone,
And left the sweetest rose behind.
If roses be such prickly flowers,
They should be pull’d when they are green;
So he that finds an inconstant love,
I’m sure he strives against the stream.
I see a ship sailing on the sea,
As heavy laden’d as she can be;
But she’s not so deep, as in love I am,—-
What is’t to me though she sink or swim ?
Must I go bound, and she go free?
Must I love one that loves not me?
Why should I act such a childish part,
As to love a fair one that breaks my heart?
’Mong thousand thousands in a room,
My love does carry the highest bloom;
She surely is my chosen one,
And I shall wed her or else wed none.
Though she were dead and at her rest,
I would think on her whom I love best;
I would wrap her up in my memory strong,
And still think on her when she’s dead and gone.