Please identify this song:What Can I Offer My Love

Subject: Please identify this song
From: Lynda Finn
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 01:39 AM

Heard sung by John Amis of 'My Music' fame on the BBC over 20 years ago, and I've been looking for it ever since.


"What can I offer my love so free
To make his Christmas worthily
The partridge had flown from our pear tree.
Flown with the summers are the swans and geese
Milkmaids and drummers would leave him little peace
I've no gold ring and no turtle dove
So what can I bring to my true love?

He shall have all I can best afford
A fine fat hen for his Christmas board
No pipers playing, no leaping lord
But two little daughters versed in the role
to be worn, like pinks, in his buttonhole
And the tree of my heart with its carolling linnet
My evergreen heart - and the bright bird in it."

Many thanks.
Lynda

Subject: RE: Please identify this song:What Can I Offer My Love
From: Peace
Date: 02 Nov 05 - 09:58 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Please identify this song:What Can I Offer My Love
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 10:22 AM

refresh again!

Subject: RE: Please identify this song:What Can I Offer My Love
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 03:09 PM

Poem by Phyllis McGinley :All The Days of Christmas


Mick

Subject: RE: Please identify this song:What Can I Offer My Love
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Nov 11 - 05:45 PM

Good poem. Thanks, Mike.

Subject: ADD: All the Days of Christmas (Phyllis McGinley)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Nov 11 - 12:26 AM

I think I'll post this, just so we're sure we have it:

Source: http://www.savhandbook.co.uk/content/all-days-christmas
(link from Mick Pearce)

This poem by Phyllis McGinley, an American poet and writer for the New Yorker, takes some of the features of the perennially-popular 'Twelve Days of Christmas' and weaves them into a meditation on family and love against the backdrop of the modern festive season.

ALL THE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
(Phyllis McGinley)

What shall my true love
Have from me
To pleasure his Christmas
Wealthily?
The partridge has flown
From our pear tree.

Flown with our summers,
Are the swans, the geese.
Milkmaids and drummers
Would leave him little peace.
I've no gold ring
And no turtle dove.
So what can I bring
To my true love?

A coat for the drizzle,
Chosen at the store;
A saw and a chisel
For mending the door;
A pair of red slippers
To slip on his feet;
Three striped neckties;
Something sweet.

He shall have all
I can best afford -
No pipers, piping,
No leaping Lord,
But a fine fat hen
For his Christmas board;
Two pretty daughters
(Versed in the role)
To be worn like pinks
In his buttonhole;
And the tree of my heart
With its calling linnet,
My evergreen heart
And the bright bird in it.