The cloth so fine as might be;
I gave thee jewels for thy chest,
And all this cost I spent on thee.
Greensleeves was all my joy, &c.
With gold embroidered gargeously;
Thy petticoat of sendal right, [thin silk]
And these I bought thee gladly.
Greensleeves was all my joy, &c.
He then describes her girdle of gold, her purse, the crimson stockings all of silk, the pumps as white as milk, the gown of grassy green, the satin sleeves, the gold-fringed garters; all of which he gave her, together with his gayest gelding, and his men decked all in green to wait upon her:
They serv’d thee with humility;
Thy foot might not once touch the ground,
And yet thou wouldst not love me.
Greensleeves was all my joy, &c.
She could desire no earthly thing without being gratified:
That thou my constancy mayst see,
And that yet once before I die
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me.
Greensleeves was all my joy, &c.
God I pray to prosper thee!
For I am still thy lover true,
Come once again and love me.
Greensleeves was all my joy, &c.
At the Revolution Green Sleeves became one of the party tunes of the Cavaliers; and in the “Collection of Loyal Songs written against the Rump Parliament,” there are no less than fourteen to be sung to it. It is sometimes referred to under the name of The Blacksmith, from a song (in the Roxburghe Collection, i. 250) to the tune of Green Sleeves, beginning—
There is none with the blacksmith’s compared may be,
For with so many several tools works he,
Which nobody can deny.”
Pepys, in his diary, 22nd April, 1660, says that, after playing at nine-pins, “my lord fell to singing a song upon the Rump, to the tune of The Blacksmith.”
It was also called The Brewer, or Old Noll, the Brewer of Huntingdon, from a satirical song about Oliver Cromwell, which is to be found in The Antidote to Melancholy, 1661, entitled “The Brewer, a ballad made in the year 1657, to the tune of The Blacksmith;” also in Wit and Drollery, Jovial Poems, 1661.
In The Dancing Master, 1686, the tune first appears under the name of Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies; and in some of the latest editions it is called Green Sleeves and Yellow Lace. Percy says, “It is a received tradition in Scotland that Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies was designed to ridicule the Popish clergy,” but the tradition most probably refers to a song of James the Second’s time called At Rome there is a terrible rout,[1] which was sung to the tune, and attained some popularity, since in the ballad-opera of Silvia, or The Country Burial, 1731, it appears under that name. Boswell, in his Journal, 8vo., 785, p. 319, prints the following Jacobite song:—
- ↑ This is entitled “Father Peters’ Policy discovered; or the Prince of Wales proved a Popish Perkin.” London: printed for R. M., ten stanzas, of which the following is the first:—
“In Rome there is a most fearful rout;
And what do you think it is about?
Because the birth of the babe’s come out,
Sing Lullaby Baby, by, by, by.”
