The Rose and the Briar (Jennifer Bastable)

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• (Posted 2024-08-21)  CPDL #81686:       

Editor: Jennifer Bastable (submitted 2024-08-21).   Score information: Letter, 5 pages, 303 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes: Version for choir.

• (Posted 2025-10-13)  CPDL #87129:     

Editor: Jennifer Bastable (submitted 2025-10-13).   Score information: Letter, 2 pages, 286 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes: Unaccompanied folk-song version.

General Information

Title: The Rose and the Briar
Composer: Jennifer Bastable
Lyricist:
Number of voices: 3vv   Voicing: MzTB
Genre: Secular, Folksong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published:
Description: A folk-style setting for three voices of words from a traditional ballad, 'Mother, mother, make my bed,' intended to be sung with just one or two voices on each part. The range of the top line is low B to high E, best suited to a mezzo-soprano.

The unaccompanied folk-song version is also given.

Original text and translations

English text

"Mother, Mother, make my bed,
And wrap me in a milk-white sheet,
And wrap me in a cloak of gold,
And see whether I can sleep.

"And send my brother dear,
Likewise my sister’s son,
All for to haste to my true-love,
Lest I die ere that he can come."

The first three miles they walked,
The next three miles they run,
Until they came to the lake
And they lay on their breast and swum.

And they came to the castle hall
And the lord he was sitting at meat:
“O, if you but knew the news we bring,
Not a morsel more could you eat.”

“O what news, what news do you bring?
Is my high fortune all brought down?”
“O no, but your true-love she is ill
And may die ere that you can come.”

So he saddled his milk-white steed,
And bridled her up so neat,
And he rode till he met with six young men,
A-bearing his lady sweet.

For the lady had died that hour
Just as the sun went down;
And the lord, he died that same night,
Ere the sun did rise again.

And the lady lay in the nave,
The lord he lay in the choir;
And from the lady spring a rose,
And from the lord a briar.

The rose and the briar grew,
They grew till they could grow no higher:
And they met and they twined a true-love's knot,
That united the rose and briar.