My love he built a bonny bower - Bastable, Jennifer

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"A setting for mezzo-soprano or soprano soloist, with accompanying ATB choir. The words are adapted from the Scottish ballad 'The Lament of the Border Widow,' itself a subsection of the ballad 'The Famous Flower of Serving-Men' [Child 106; Roud 199]. The unaccompanied version is given for reference. This omits the verse starting 'O don't you think my heart was sore.'"

◈ Genre / Form Folksongs

♯ Key A minor

⁄ Time Signature 3/4

♬ Voicing → SATB

◆ Difficulty

Elementary

↕ Range F2 – E5

¶ Language → English

Measures 97

Texture Homophonic

Parts 4

Instruments SATB

Pages 6

CPDL # 86658

Editor Jennifer Bastable

Posted 2025-09-04

License Personal

♫Pitch Ranges

Part_1

D4 – E5

Part_2

G3 – A4

Part_3

D4 – D5

Part_4

F2 – A3

¶Lyrics / Text

My love he built a bonny bower And clad it all with lily flower. A fairer bower you ne’er did see Than my true love he built for me. There came a man at mid-day hour, He saw my bower, he saw my knight, And he brought armèd men that night Who broke my bower and slew my knight. They slew my knight, to me so dear, They slew my knight and stole his gear. My servants all for life did flee, And left me in extremity. I took his body on my back. And whilst I went, and whiles I sat. I digg’d a grave and laid him in, And happ'd him with the sod so green. O don’t you think my hair was sore To lay the mould on his yellow hair, And don’t you think my heart was woe To turn about, away to go. The man lives not I’ll love again, Since that my comely knight was slain. All with a lock of his yellow hair, I’ll bind my heart for evermore.

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