The Babbling Brook (Peter C. Lutkin)

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• (Posted 2023-11-10)  CPDL #77193:     

Editor: David Anderson (submitted 2023-11-10).   Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 511 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

• (Posted 2021-07-19)  CPDL #65190:     

Editor: Douglas Walczak (submitted 2021-07-19).   Score information: Letter, 12 pages, 146 kB   Copyright: Personal

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: The Babbling Brook
Composer: Peter C. Lutkin
Lyricist: Julia Zitella Cocke
Number of voices: 4vv   Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Partsong

Language: English
Instruments: A cappella

First published: 1906 J. Curwen & Sons
Description: 

Original text and translations

English text

'Twas in the month o' Maying That a man
   and maid went straying
Blooming fields and meadows green
   a-through.
But what the man was saying, or the pretty
   maid betraying,
Why, the simple smiling meadows
   never knew.

Down woodland ways enchanted and through
   flower-break bird haunted,
Where the leaves in gossip whispered low,
The man and maid went faring, but the
   vows the two were swearing,
Why, the green and silly leaflets did
   not know.

And still the hour of gloaming found the happy
   pair a-roaming
 By the water-ways in valleys sweet,
Where a brooklet wise and wily wound
   about their pathway slily,
 With a song of murmured music at their feet.

And aye the brooklet listened, and its waters
   glanced and glistened,
Till it laughed aloud in gurgling glee,
 As it hurried over highways, through the
   hedges and the byways,
 On its way to tell a secret to the sea.

Deem not a word of warning meet for man
   or maiden's scorning,
 Who from morn to eve a-Maying go;
For brooklets can discover all the words
   and ways of lover,
 And will babble every secret that they know.