Buy my strawberries

Oh! buy, oh! buy my strawberries,
    In London Town to-day,
Fair ladies, kindly heed them,
    As you pass on your way!
They're fresh and good and scented,
    The finest ever seen,
And set in dainty splendour
    On leaves all moist and green!

         Ripe strawberries!  Ripe strawberries!
         Buy, buy, buy a little basket,
         Neat and round, a penny a pound!
         Dear ladies, I ask it!
         Rosy and many,
         Sweeter than any,
         All for a penny,
         Ripe strawberries! Oh! buy,!

From Islington's fair gardens
    Before the morn was red,
I picked these lovely strawberries,
    All from a dewy bed.
Oh! buy them , pretty ladies,
    Each one of summer speaks,
They'll paint the blushing roses
    Upon your children's cheeks!

         Ripe strawberries!  Ripe strawberries! etc.

Submitted by Sharon Krebs [Guest Editor]

Authorship

• by Edward Frederick Lockton (1876 - 1940), as Edward Teschemacher [ author's text not yet checked 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 Herbert Oliver , "Buy my strawberries", published 1912 [voice and piano], from Songs of Old London, no. 2, London: J.H. Larway [
   text verified 1 time
  ]

Text added to the website: 2012-09-02.
Last modified: 2014-06-16 10:05:02
Line count: 25
Word count: 122

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