I suspect that one or two people may be reading a little more into this song than is actually there!  Unsurprisingly, it's been discussed here quite a bit in the past, and its authorship and ancestry examined; I put links to various related threads and DT entries on  Wild Mountain Thyme--Variation  some months back.  

The Bunch of Thyme is a very different matter, of course, but then, it's a different song.  Sometimes, "thyme" just means thyme.

Malcolm