scarborough fair / canticle





Are you going to scarborough fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine



Tell her to make me a cambric shirt

(on the side of a hill in the deep forest green)

Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme

(tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)

Without no seams nor needlework

(blankets and bedclothes a child of the mountains)

Then she'll be a true love of mine

(sleeps unaware of the clarion call)



Tell her to find me an acre of land

(on the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)

Parsely, sage, rosemary, & thyme

(washes the grave with silvery tears)

Between the salt water and the sea strand

(a soldier cleans and polishes a gun)

Then she'll be a true love of mine



Tell her to reap it in a sickle of leather

(war bellows, blazing in scarlet battalions)

Parsely, sage, rosemary & thyme

(generals order their soldiers to kill)

And to gather it all in a bunch of heather

(and to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)

Then she'll be a true love of mine



Are you going to scarborough fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine


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