When as the rye [reach'd]1 to the chin,
And chop-cherry, chop-cherry ripe within,
Strawberries swimming in the cream,
And schoolboys playing in the stream;
Then, O, then O then O, my true love said,
[Till that time]2 come again 
She could not live a maid!

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)

Confirmed with The Book of Elizabethan Verse, ed. by William Stanley Braithwaite, 1907.

¹ Barratt, Raynor, Rutter, Warlock: "reach"
² Rutter: "Until that should"
³ Rutter adds:

Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo:
o word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
Cuckoo, loud sing cuckoo!

Text Authorship:

• by George Peele (1556? - 1596), "The Impatient Maid", appears in The Old Wives' Tale, first published 1595 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Carol Barratt , "Summer Song", published 1997, from Six "Songs" for Singing, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Chopcherry", op. 151 (1947) [ baritone and piano ], from Two Songs, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Chopcherry", op. 244 (1949) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Chopcherry", op. 247 (1950) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
• by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Whenas The Rye", op. 660 (1965) [sung text not yet checked]
• by Peter Warlock (1894 - 1930), "Chopcherry", 1922, published 1923, from Peterisms: first set, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
• by Peter Warlock (1894 - 1930), "Whenas the rye", 1918, published 1920 [ voice and piano ], first setting [sung text checked 1 time]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

• by (Edward) Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976), "The driving boy", op. 44 no. 4 (1949) [ soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, mixed chorus, boys' chorus, and orchestra ], from Spring Symphony, no. 4
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    
• by John Milford Rutter, CBE (b. 1945), "When Daisies pied", 1997 [ chorus and piano ]
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Lidy van Noordenburg) , copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 7
Word count: 45