Just after writing that entry, a song popped into my head. How and why, I don’t know… there was no music playing, the TV was off… but an old English folk song popped into my head. I don’t think we sang it in choir and I know I must’ve just learned it from a movie, but it’s stuck in my head. Here are the lyrics to “Early One Morning”, the song in question:

Early one morning, just as the sun was rising
I heard a maid sing in the valley below
“Oh don’t deceive me, Oh never leave me,
How could you use a poor maiden so?”

Remember the vows that you made to me truly
Remember how tenderly you nestled close to me
Gay is the garland, fresh are the roses
I’ve culled from the garden to bind over thee.

Here I now wander alone as I wonder
Why did you leave me to sigh and complain
I ask of the roses, why should I be forsaken,
Why must I here in sorrow remain?

Through yonder grove, by the spring that is running
There you and I have so merrily played,
Kissing and courting and gently sporting
Oh, my innocent heart you’ve betrayed

How could you slight so a pretty girl who loves you
A pretty girl who loves you so dearly and warm?
Though love’s folly is surely but a fancy,
Still it should prove to me sweeter than your scorn.

Soon you will meet with another pretty maiden
Some pretty maiden, you’ll court her for a while;
Thus ever ranging, turning and changing
Always seeking for a girl that is new.

Thus sang the maiden, her sorrows bewailing
Thus sang the poor maid in the valley below
“Oh don’t deceive me, Oh never leave me,
How could you use a poor maiden so?”

If you go to this site, you can listen to a midi file of the song. Not the best quality, I know - but you get the idea. It’s a simple lilting little melody - precisely what you need to get something stuck in your head.

Now I’m going to have to watch “Pride and Prejudice” to get to sleep. Thank goodness for Colin Firth.