This comes from a Ph.D. thesis called "Vernacular Song From a North Yorkshire Hill Farm: Culture, Contexts and Comparisons" by David Hillery. The informant is Jack Beeforth, who says he learned the song before 1900.


IT WAS EARLY IN THE SPRING

1. It was early in the spring when the birds began to sing.
That was the time that I tried to win the heart of a damsel fair.
Her cheeks were as red as the berries that grows.
Would you suppose each morning she rose
Tripping along on her neat little toes
Gathering wild flowers to sell—o.

CHORUS: Tripping along the green each morning she was seen
With a basket on her arm filled with roses,
And if you feel inclined to ask her where she's been,
She'll tell you she's been gathering wild roses.

2. Now one morn as this maid passed by she heaved her eye and made a sigh,
Then she asked me if I would buy a bunch of wild flowers.
I gave her a penny she in a return
Gave me a rose bound up in a fern.
I looked up in her face and at once did discern
That she was a charming young girl—o.

3. Now when Cupid pierced his dart through my heart I tried to start
But soon I found it hard to part with such a charming girl.
I looked in her face and at once did confess
That I was in love and would like her address.
She gave it to me. She could do nothing less,
And that night I went to her house—o.

4. Now then her history to me did tell that her father in battle fell.
To earn her living she had to sell those bunches of wild flowers.
I told her I'd make her right happy for life
If she would consent to be my little wife,
And since that day we've known neither care nor strife
Since I married that girl with the rose—o.