Annotation:Let Me Wander

Back to Let Me Wander

LET ME WANDER (Not Unseen). English, Air (12/8 time). D Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. The air was composed by classical composer Georg Friedrich Händel [1] for his ode "L'Allegro, Il Penseroso Ed Il Moderate" (1740).

It appears in a number of 18th century publications and copybooks, including Eleazer Cary's copybook (c. 1797-99), the John Simpson manuscript (1750), Amaryllis (1760), Calliope (1746), Clio and Euterpe (or British Harmony, vol. 3, 1762), and Vocal Music of the Songster's Companion (1778).

Let me wander, not unseen
By Hedge-row elms, on hillocks green.
There the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles over the furrow'd land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Geoghegan (Compleat Tutor for the Pastoral or New Bagpipes), c. 1745-46; p. 30.

Recorded sources:

Back to Let Me Wander