As I Wandered By The Brookside

As I wandered by the brookside, I wandered by the mill,
I could now hear the brook flow, for the noisy mill was still;
No sound of grasshopper could I hear, nor the sound of any bird,
For the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard;
For the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard,
All the sound I heard.

He came not, no, he came not, the moon shone out alone,
The twinkling stars now one by one shone 'round her golden foam;
I waited for one footstep, I waited for one word,
But the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard;
But the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard,
All the sound I heard.

Oh, as I sat there musing, a touch came from behind,
A hand was on my shoulder laid, I knew the touch was kind;
It drew me much more near him, I could not speak one word,
For the beating of our own two hearts was all the sound I heard;
For the beating of our own two hearts was all the sound I heard,
For the beating of our own two hearts was all the sound I heard.

####.... Variant of I Wandered By The Brookside by Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton, ca.1850. (Music copyright ©1985 by Barbara Berry). Also a variant of a mid-19th century British broadside ballad, As I Wandered By The Brookside, published by J. Cadman (Manchester) sometime between 1850 and 1855, and archived at the Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads, shelfmark: Harding B 11(405) ....####

Collected by Helen Creighton (1899-1989) and published in Maritime Folk Songs (Ryerson, 1962, 1972, Toronto)