Sheffield Park

Lyrics

1
Down Sheffield Park a maid did dwell,
A brisk young man he loved her well,
He courted her from day to day,
At length he stole her heart away.

2
One morning upstairs to make her bed,
She lay down her weary head,
Her mistress came and to her did say,
“What is the matter with you today?”

3
“Oh, mistress, oh, mistress, you little do know,
What trials and troubles that I undergo.
Place your right hand upon my left breast,
My fainting heart it knows no rest.”

4
“Then write him a letter and write it with speed,
And send it to him if he can read,
And bring me an answer without delay,
For young Colin has stolen your heart away.”

5
“Then gather leaves to make my bed,
A feathery pillow for my weary head,
And the leaves they flutter from tree to lea
Will make a covering o’er me.”

6
There is a flower that bloometh in May,
That’s seldom seen by night or by day,
And the leaves they flutter from tree to lea
Will make a covering o’er me.

Recording from the LP In Sheffield Park, Traditional Songs from South Yorkshire.

This is a traditional song about Yorkshire, collected in Yorkshire.

Provenance

The earliest version of this lament that mentions Sheffield Park is on a single slip printed by Evans of 42 Long Lane, London, titled The Young Man of Sheffield Park, c1794. It consists of four double stanzas and largely corresponds to the standard ten-stanza version printed in the early nineteenth century by Pitts and Catnach and their contemporaries, and then by many of the provincial printers up as far as Newcastle. The first double stanza is the first of the common version and one not found in this version; the second double stanza equates to stanzas 2 and 3 of the common version; the third double stanza to 4 and 5; and the fourth is stanza 6 of the common version and one not found there. Therefore the last four stanzas of the common version are new, but three of them appear to have been added from a ballad of c1686 titled The Constant Lady and false-hearted Squire; Being a Relation of a Knight’s Daughter near Woodstock Town in Oxfordshire printed for Richard Baldwin near Fleet street, London. (See Pepys Vol 5, p285) Some of its stanzas are found in the black-letter ballad The Diseased (Deceased) Maiden Lover printed by Coles, Vere and Wright c1663-74. (Pepys Vol 3, p124) Stanzas from this general stock have also crept into the various laments that form the large family of Died for Love/ Brisk Young Sailor songs. They continued to be refashioned into other songs into the early eighteenth century. D’Urfey’s Pills to Purge Melancholy, 1720, Vol 3 p52 has A Forlorn Lover’s Complaint which is a contraction of the Coles, Vere and Wright version.

Perhaps not coincidentally the first three stanzas of the standard ten stanza version of Sheffield Park also frequently turn up amongst the various members of the Died for Love family.

Frank’s fourth stanza, line 4, has been influenced by another love song Young Colin stole my heart away. In other versions the lover’s name is William. His first five stanzas are stanzas 1, 2, 3, 5 and 9 of the standard version, but the first part of his sixth stanza rather curiously harks back to The Constant Lady and False-hearted Squire mentioned above;

‘Now there’s a flower,’ she did say,
‘Is named Heartsease, night and day.’

But this is also found in later versions using the general stock of verses in Died of Love family songs.