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Lyr Req: Silver Wheat / Watching the Wheat

08 Apr 02 - 06:15 PM (#685744)
Subject: When I was young I wandered free
From: GUEST,Ronnie Cotterill

This was the first line of a song I used to sing with my sister as a young girl. I would really like all the verses and the music for it. As far as I can remember the first verse was as follows; When I was young I wandered free Like wind across the meadow A stray among the silver wheat Without a path to follow And wildly sang the summer breeze And gaily danced the flower And roving sunlight wove it's dreams Of joys that last forever. Does anyone know its origin?


09 Apr 02 - 06:17 AM (#686009)
Subject: RE: When I was young I wandered free
From: GUEST,reed

Oh, I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.


19 Oct 05 - 05:02 PM (#1586499)
Subject: RE: When I was young I wandered free
From: GUEST,Magpie

I too remember this song. We sung it at school in our 'Singing Together' lessons. I loved the romance of it and have remembered it ever since, but I've never been able to find it in a book or on a website. It's nice to know I'm not the only one to recall it.

I think it was a bird that wildly sang, by the way, but it was a very long time ago and so I could easily be wrong.


19 Oct 05 - 05:06 PM (#1586502)
Subject: Lyr Add: THE SILVER WHEAT
From: GUEST,Magpie

Further to my note above, I managed to find this on a Google-cached copy of a folkinfo.org page.

The Silver Wheat
When I was young I wandered free, like wind across the meadow,
Astray among the silver wheat without a path to follow.
And wildly sang the summer bird, and gaily danced the flower.
And roving sunlight wove its dream of joys that last forever.

Then on a day of golden dawn, in sweet surprise of morning,
I met the one that I must love, and all my world was turning,
I heard the cry of curlew-sea, the kestrel-sky still called me,
But I was with my new-found love, and all her ways enthralled me.

I feared the rise of harvest moon, with star-frost in its shadow,
When men would reap the silver wheat and the fields lie fallow,
For owl would mourn the barren tree, and fox would haunt the valley,
And autumn wind might take from me the one I loved so truly.

I made a crown of garland leaves, the gold within them burning,
And gave it to my own true love, in token of my longing,
Let sun-warmed summer pass away, let mountain stream go wander,
Like reapers we would happy stay and harvest joy together.

Source: Singing Together, Summer 1975, BBC Publications


Lovely to see all the lyrics again. :)


19 Oct 05 - 08:50 PM (#1586648)
Subject: RE: When I was young I wandered free
From: masato sakurai

See this thread (Lyr Req: Watching the wheat).


31 Mar 16 - 09:20 AM (#3782436)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Silver Wheat / Watching the Wheat
From: GUEST,pat

Can somebody correct the second line of the 3rd verse please? The word 'the' is repeated i.e. When men would reap the silver wheat and the the fields lie fallow,

thank you


11 May 16 - 01:51 PM (#3789789)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Silver Wheat / Watching the Wheat
From: GUEST,And leave the fields lie fallow,


11 May 16 - 05:48 PM (#3789838)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Silver Wheat / Watching the Wheat
From: Helen

And here I was thinking that you were asking about the Welsh song, Bugeilio'r Gwenith Gwyn, Watching the White Wheat

Helen