The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #51748   Message #1583175
Posted By: Tradsinger
14-Oct-05 - 02:18 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Holmfirth Anthem
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Holmfirth Anthem
The Roud index, which I regard as the bible on English-language collected songs, gives 17 entries for Holmforth Anthem/Abroad for Pleasure/Through the Groves, which it treats as variants of the same song. Curiously, collectors did not start to note Yorkshire versions of the song until the 1960s, but variants of it were collected, mainly in Hampshire, in the early years of the C19. There is an 1850 broadside which has the same words as the Holmforth Anthem.

A Hampshire version which I sing goes:

Through the groves as I was a-walking, out one summer's evening clear (repeat)
Twas there I spied a beautiful damsel, lamenting for her shepherd dear
Lamenting for her shepherd dear.

Boldly then I stepped up to her and she blushed as I drew near
I said 'Fair maid, what is your trouble, and what makes you lamenting here?'

She said 'Kind sir, if you can believe me, my trouble's more than I can bear
For my true lover, he's gone and left me, across the seas, I know not where.

Oh, where's my shepherd, I love him dearly, how could I love him any more
He's gone, he's gone, he's gone and left me, I ne'er shall see him again, I fear.

Down by yonder flowery garden, where the river runs so clear
'Twas there I left this maid lamenting, and down her cheek there ran a tear.

I rather like this. You think it's going to be a broken token ballad where the girl recognises the bloke when he reveals himself to her ... so to speak ... but instead he just b*****s off and leaves her crying. No happy ending there, then.

Gwilym