🎵 🍎 WONDERFUL WORDS (and Music!): My Orchard in Linden Lea

It’s apple season across much of the United States right now. Perhaps you have an apple tree in your backyard, or perhaps a homeschool pick-your-own expedition is one of your family traditions. Our next poem-of-the-week, coming up on the 15th, is Robert Frost’s “After Apple-Picking,” a philosophical favorite for harvest time.

Today, however, the 12th of October, happens to be the birthday of the great English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), and he wrote music to accompany another much-loved apple-time poem, William Barnes’ “My Orchard in Linden Lea.” So we’re going to have an extra poem (and song!) this week, in honor of Vaughan Williams and the apple harvest.

William Barnes (1801–1886) was from the county of Dorset in the southwest of England, and he was both a linguist and a poet. He wrote many of his verses in the Dorset dialect of his native county, and they often show a special appreciation for rural life. “My Orchard in Linden Lea” (1859) is probably his best known work; it’s usually presented today in a slightly modernized form.

My Orchard in Linden Lea

Within the woodlands, flow’ry gladed,
By the oak tree’s mossy moot,
The shining grass-blades, timber-shaded,
Now do quiver under foot,
And birds do whistle overhead,
And water’s bubbling in its bed,
And there for me the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

When leaves that lately were a-springing
Now do fade within the copse,
And painted birds do hush their singing
Up upon the timber tops,
And brown-leav’d fruit’s a-turning red
In cloudless sunshine overhead,
With fruit for me the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

Let other folk make money faster
In the air of dark-roomed towns —
I don’t dread a peevish master,
Though no man may heed my frowns.
I be free to go abroad
Or take again my homeward road
To where for me the apple tree
Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

The stand-out Dorset dialect word in this “Common English” version of the poem is moot — a tree stump (“by the oak tree’s mossy stump”). In addition to moot, I’m pretty sure you already know one other rare Dorset dialect word, even though it doesn’t appear in this poem: the Dorset word for Bumblebee is Dumbledore. 🐝 🧙

Barnes’ Dorset poem was beautifully set to music in 1902 by Vaughan Williams under the shortened title “Linden Lea,” and it has been much favored by classically-trained singers. Here’s a magnificent version by bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk (1931–2014).

But it’s not just classical singers who have loved the song: choral settings of Vaughan Williams’ “Linden Lea” have become staples of school and college choirs around the world. Here’s a fine version from the Diocesan Boys’ School Choir of Hong Kong.

If you and your students like this music and want to learn more about “RVW” during his birthday week, why not go over and explore the website of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society.

What other pomologically oriented musico-literary discoveries have you and your students made in your domiciliary academy this Cygnus Term? 🍎

❡ Literary lives: The website of the Poetry Foundation includes biographical notes and examples of the work of many important poets (including William Barnes) that are suitable for high school students and homeschool teachers. ✒️

❡ This is a printable lesson: Down at the bottom of this post you’ll find a custom “Print” button that will let you create a neat and easy-to-read copy of this little lesson, and it will even let you resize or delete elements that you may not want or need (such as images or footnotes). Give it a try today! 🖨

❡ I be free to go abroad: This is one of our occasional Homeschool Arts & Music lessons. Add your name to our weekly mailing list to get more great homeschool teaching tips delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

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