I haven’t got a great deal to say about this song as it really speaks for itself: but it does seem very appropriate for Valentine’s Day. It is dedicated to my wife Jan and I wrote it in the year of our wedding, 1981.
It’s a setting of the very well known poem by Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
And, reader, she did…. although I may not have managed to give her a straw belt with coral clasps and amber studs, I did manage a gold ring – and I hope that I managed to capture that sense of excitement for the future in my setting of this poem.
This song is in the exam syllabus for ABRSM and was also in that of Trinity College London.