Maid of Llanwellyn
Maid of Llanwellyn | |
Joanna Baillie
| I've no sheep on the mountains Nor boat on the lake Nor coin in my coffer To keep me awake Nor corn in my garner, Nor fruit on my tree Yet the maid of Llanwellyn Smiles sweetly on me. | 2. Rich Owen will tell you, With eyes full of scorn Threadbare is my coat, And my hosen are torn Scoff on, my rich Owen, For faint is thy glee When the maid of Llanwellyn Smiles sweetly on me. | 3. The farmer rides proudly To market and fair And the clerk at the ale house Still claims the great chair But of all our proud fellows The proudest I'll be While the maid of Llanwellyn Smiles sweetly on me. |
This song was published by George Thomson of Edinburgh, 1757-1851, who paid F. J. Haydn in Vienna, 2 ducats each, for some 200 tunes, to give old British Isles' folk tunes real class. He then got some more tunes from Beethoven, who quit, disgusted with the pay. "In her 'Maid of Llanwellyn', Miss Baillie's lyric spoke of the beautiful lakes in Wales. When Thomson objected, saying that Wales had no lakes, Miss Joanna Baillie haughtily answered that since lakes would not rise out of the earth for their convenience, and since she was unwilling to alter the line, they would just have to hope that their readers would be as ignorant as she had been when she wrote it." |