An English Lady in Love with a Welsh Plough-boy.
Young Welshmen were in the habit of taking service at the Shropshire farms, coming to England to seek their fortune as the Irish labourers do now, or did till lately.
The love of a noble lady for a "squire of low degree" is a favourite topic with ballad-makers. I have another song on the same subject, "The Golden Glove," see the Percy Society's vol. xvii.
"All in the month of May, when flowers were a-springing,
I went into the meadows some pleasure for to find;
I went into the meadows, I turn'd myself around,
Where I saw a pretty Welsh lad a-ploughing up the ground.
"And as he was a-ploughing his furrows deep and low,
Cleaving his sods in pieces, his barley for to sow;
It is the pretty Welsh lad that's all in my mind,
And many hours I wander this young man for to find.
"An old man came a-courting me, a man of birth and fame
Because I would not have him, my parents did me blame;
It is the pretty Welsh lad that runs all in my mind,
A poor distressed lady, a Welsh lad to my mind.
"An old man I do disdain, his wealth and all his store,
O give to me my plough-boy, and I desire no more.
He's the flower of this country, a diamond in my eye.
It is for the pretty Welsh lad that I for love must die.
"I wish the pretty skylark would mount up in the air.
That my pretty plough-boy the tidings he might hear;
Perhaps he would prove true to me and ease my aching heart,
It is for the pretty Welsh lad that I do feel the smart.
"I'll wait until I see him to tell him my mind,
And if he don't relieve me, I shall think him unkind;
And if he'll not grant me his love, then distracted I shall be;
Into some grove I'll wander, where no one shall me see."
(M. Waidson, printer, Shrewsbury.)
Pyebirch, Eccleshall, Staffordshire.
