Vintage Audio: Roses of Picardy
Updated - Sunday, 6 April, 2003

Reproduced below are the lyrics to the popular song Roses of Picardy, penned by British officer Frederick E. Weatherley (music by Haydn Wood) in 1916.

An instant popular favourite and performed widely, a film of the same name - and based around the First World War - was produced in 1927.

The song was invariably sung by British soldiers who had left behind a sweetheart when they enlisted (or were conscripted) for the Front in France and Flanders.  However the song was written by Weatherley after he had conceived an affection for a French widow while receiving protection at her home in France.

Two versions of the song are available here: the first (click here, MP3 format 905kb) was performed by Ernest Pike in 1917; the second (click here, MP3 format 406kb) was rendered by John McCormack in 1919.

Roses of Picardy

She is watching by the poplars
Colinette with the sea blue eyes
She is watching and longing and waiting
Where the long white roadway lies
And a song stirs in the silence
As the wind in the boughs above
She listens and starts and trembles
'Tis the first little song of love

Roses are shining in Picardy
In the hush of the silver dew
Roses are flowering in Picardy
But there's never a rose like you
And the roses will die with the summer time
And our roads may be far apart
But there's one rose that dies not in Picardy
'Tis the rose that I keep in my heart

And the years fly on forever
Til the shadows veil their sighs
But he loves to hold her little hand
And look in her sea blue eyes.
And he sees the rose by the poplars
Where they met in the bygone years
For the first little song of the roses
Is the last little song she hears

She is watching by the poplars
Colinette with the sea blue eyes
She is watching and longing and waiting
Where the long white roadway lies
And a song stirs in the silence
As the wind in the boughs above
She listens and starts and trembles
'Tis the first little song of love.

A "Dixie" (from the Hindi degci) was an army cooking pot.

Original Material © Michael Duffy 2000-09, SafeSurf Rated