Traditional: Collected Lyrics
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Public-domain lyrics

Volume 5/As I Travers'd To and Fro

Traditional

“Volume 5/As I Travers'd To and Fro” as printed in National Ballad and Song (1897).

Traditional: Collected Lyrics Text 357 1897 · historical text
Public domainBalladNational song
Complete public-domain lyrics

This text comes from National Ballad and Song, a historical songbook transcribed on Wikisource and reproduced from the pinned revision linked below.

Verse 1

As I travers’d to and fro,

And in the fields was walking,

I chanc’d to hear two Sisters

That secretly were talking:

The younger to the elder said,

Prethee why do’st not marry?

In faith, quoth she, I’le tell to thee,

I mean not long to tarry.

Verse 2

When I was fifteen years of age,

Then I had suitors many:

But, I a wanton peevish wench

Would not sport with any:

Till at the last I sleeping fast,

Cupid came to woo me,

And, like a lad that was stark mad,

He swore he would come to me.

And then he lay down by my side

And spread his armes upon me,

And I, being ’twixt sleep and wake,

Did strive to thrust him from me,

But he with all the power he had,

Did lie the harder on me.

And then he did so play with me,

As I was plaid with never;

The wanton boy so pleased me,

I would have slept for ever.

And then methought the world turn’d round,

And Phœbus fell a-skipping,

And all the Nymphs and Goddesses

About us two were tripping.

Then seemed Neptune as he had pour’d

His Ocean streams upon us,

But Boreas with his blust’ring blasts

Did strive to keep him from us.

Limping Vulcan he came,

As if he had been jealous,

Venus follow’d after him,

And swore she’d blow the bellows.

Mars called Cupid Jackanapes,

And swore he would him smother,

Quoth Cupid, Said I so to thee

When thou lay’st with my mother?

Juno then, and Jupiter,

Came marching with Apollo;

Pan came in with Mercury,

And then began the hollo;

Cupid ran and hid himself,

And so of joys bereft me:

For suddenly I did awake,

And all these fancies left me.

Credits

Written by Traditional

Traditional words. Historical text published in National Ballad and Song (1897); public domain. No claim to a modern recording or arrangement.

Source & text edition

National Ballad and Song (1897), “Volume 5/As I Travers'd To and Fro”

The 1897 published edition is in the public domain in the United States (pre-1931 publication). Entries whose credited author died more than 70 years ago are also in the public domain in life-plus-70 jurisdictions; other entries are held.

How to read this historical text and its source

Read the source on Wikisource

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Retrieved 2026-10-25. Line spacing and section labels are adapted for reading. The displayed text follows the linked edition. Editorial notes and abstract artwork are by 52lyrics.
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