Green Bushes is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 folk song (Roud

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 #1040) which is featured in the second movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite

English Folk Song Suite

Written in 1923, the English Folk Song Suite is one of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams's most famous works for military band. Although it is commonly known by the title given above, it was actually published as "Folk Song Suite" - the title which is used on the score and parts...

, in Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger

George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...

's Green Bushes (Passacaglia on an English Folksong), and in George Butterworth's

George Butterworth

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC was an English composer best known for the orchestral idyll The Banks of Green Willow and his song settings of A. E...

 The Banks of Green Willow

The Banks of Green Willow

The Banks of Green Willow is a short orchestral piece by George Butterworth. It was composed in 1913, is written in the key of A major, and is around six minutes long. -Composition:...

. The melody is very similar to that of the Lost Lady Found movement of Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger

George Percy Aldridge Grainger , known as Percy Grainger, was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist. In the course of a long and innovative career he played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. He also made many...

's Lincolnshire Posy

Lincolnshire Posy

Lincolnshire Posy is a piece by Percy Grainger for concert band composed in 1937 for the American Bandmasters Association. Considered Grainger's masterpiece, the work is composed of six movements, each adapted from folk songs that Grainger had collected on a 1905–1906 trip to Lincolnshire,...

, and to The Cutty Wren.

Lyrics

As I was a walking one morning in Spring,

For to hear the birds whistle and the nightingales sing,

I saw a young damsel, so sweetly sang she:

Down by the Green Bushes he thinks to meet me.

I stepped up to her and thus I did say:

Why wait you my fair one, so long by the way?

My true Love, my true Love, so sweetly sang she,

Down by the Green Bushes he thinks to meet me.

I'll buy you fine beavers and a fine silken gownd,

I will buy you fine petticoats with the flounce to the ground,

If you will prove loyal and constant to me

And forsake you own true Love, I'll be married to thee.

I want none of your petticoats and your fine silken shows:

I never was so poor as to marry for clothes;

But if you will prove loyal and constant to me

I'll forsake my own true Love and get married to thee.

Come let us be going, kind sir, if you please;

Come let us be going from beneath the green trees.

For my true Love is coming down yonder I see,

Down by the Green Bushes, where he thinks to meet me.

And when he came there and he found she was gone,

He stood like some lambkin, forever undone;

She has gone with some other, and forsaken me,

So adieu to Green Bushes forever, cried he.