I met my love in summer days
On Sundays in the morn
And prov'd it in a thousand ways
While walking through the corn
I pull'd her as she stept the stile
Back just to kiss her cheek
She just rebuk'd me by a smile
I felt it all the week.

2

With stick before I beat the dew
Where heavy laid the grain
For black and glossy was her shoe
Her new gown without stain
I put the envious brier away
That dangled for her sleeve
And cut the bramble from the spray
That they no wounds might leave.

3

There are days to remember
Whose sunshine hath set
Where loves dying ember
But kindles regret
How aches the fond bosom
To look on the past
Where Edens gates close em
On joys first & last
& now unreposing
On the world we are cast

Vetches; both yellow, and blue,
Grew thick in the meadow lane,
Isabellas shawl kept off the dew,
As thickly upon her it came,
A thorn bush caught her umbrella,
As though it would bid her to stay,
But the loving, and loved Isabella,
Went laughing, and walking away.

Arise, my Isabel, arise,
The sun shoots forth his early ray,
The hue of love, is in the skies,
The birds are singing, come away!
Oh come! my Isabella come!
With inky tendrils, hanging low,
Thy cheeks like hedge rose, just in bloom,
That in the healthy summer glow.
2

That eye it turns the world away
From wanton ways, & recklessness,
That eye beams with a cheerful ray,
And smiles propitiously to bless,
Oh come! my Isabella dear!
Oh come! and fill these longing arms,
Come let me see thy beauty here,

The path that led across the fiel
Foot printed, dry, and clean,
Crept snake like in its trail,
Through meadows crisp, and green;
I hung upon my sweethearts arm,
Whose face was red, and bonny,
He said, as love began to warm:
He loved me best o' ony.

2

He said so, as he wiped away,
The hair upon his brow,
It was the happy first o' May
And I'd just milked the cow,
The rose just peeped, and on the brere,
It scented blithe, and bonny;
He softly said, my Mary dear
I love you best o' ony.

3

I peeled bits o straws and I got switches too
From the grey peeling Willow as Idlers do
And I switched at the flyes as I sat all alone
Till my flesh blood & marrow wasted to dry bone
My illness was love though I knew not the smart
But the beauty o love was the blood o my heart

Crowded places I shunned them as noises to[o] rude
And flew to the silence of sweet solitude
Where the flower in green darkness, buds, blossoms & fades
Unseen of a shepherds & flower loving maids
The hermit bees find them but once & away

Twas i' the morning early
The dew was on the barley
Each hours a string o beads
Blue caps intensely blue
Corn poppys burnt me through
Seemed flowers among the weeds.

Where I met young Mary Boyfield
And did loves dearest joy feel
As she passed me i the corn
Her gown brushed gently by me
And love that could not flye me
Shone like the dewey morn.

Her cheeks the rosey breres bloom
Her eyes like ripples lately come
From gravel paving Spring
She looked accross the red & blue
Each colour wore a livelier hue

O Hellen Wright, O Hellen Wright
A cruel maid to me
My many vows o' love to slight
And not to let me be
To throw your image in my way
The light o' day to mark
Then cruelly my hopes betray
And leave me in the dark
When I had hopes your love to meet
You shunned me in the very street.

But when I passed wi careless eye
You passed me every day
I' streets nay fields where none came nigh
But only to betray
I owned my love when you was nigh
I said I loved you true
Since then you never once were bye

1

Sweet love I see the gales of Spring
Are wanton, wooing with thy hair
The missle thrush begins to sing
The sloe tree shews its blossoms fair
The white thorn bush is shewing leaf
The path is printed down the lane
The grass is green the shower brief
Come love now let us meet again

2

O let us meet and walk and love
And through the fir dale coppice stray
And view the scaley cones above
Droop brown as dropping all the way
The moss that warms the primrose roots
The buds their brimstone flowers contain

Who could but love a face so fair
Yet hope to be forgiven
Need pilgrims ever more despair
When once in sight of heaven