Rosemary green, and lavender blue (Jennifer Bastable)

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• (Posted 2025-10-16)  CPDL #87155:       

Editor: Jennifer Bastable (submitted 2025-10-16).   Score information: Letter, 6 pages, 482 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes: Full version for SATB choir.

• (Posted 2025-10-16)  CPDL #87156:       

Editor: Jennifer Bastable (submitted 2025-10-16).   Score information: Letter, 2 pages, 340 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes: Unaccompanied folk-song version.

General Information

Title: Rosemary green, and lavender blue
Composer: Jennifer Bastable
Lyricist:
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Folksong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published:
Description: A four-part piece in the style of a folk-song, with soloists from within the choir. (If preferred, it may be sung tutti throughout.) With slight adaptation, the song may also be performed by an unaccompanied solo voice, for which a score has been added.

The refrain is recorded as a nursery rhyme, although lists of plants and flowers are also common in traditional ballads; the verses are based on motifs from various folk-songs, and are a response to two of the mockingly impossible tasks set in songs such as Scarborough Fair.

Original text and translations

English text

Rosemary green,
And lavender blue,
Thyme, and sweet marjoram,
Hyssop, and rue.

I made for my love a fine linen shirt
With never a seam nor needlework;
I washed it clean in yonder dry well
Where water ne’er sprung nor a drop of rain fell.

Rosemary green,
And lavender blue,
Thyme, and sweet marjoram,
Hyssop, and rue.

And I planted fair roses to bloom in the spring
When the leaves they were green and the small birds did sing:
But my love he proved false and he stole them from me,
And left but the prickling thorns on the tree.

Rosemary green,
And lavender blue,
Thyme, and sweet marjoram,
Hyssop, and rue.