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She's my myrtle, my geranium, My sunflow'r, my sweet marjoram, My honeysuckle, my tulip, my violet, My hollyhock, my dahlia, my mignonette.
She's my snowdrop, my ranunculus, My hyacinth, my gilly flow'r, my polyanthus; My heart's ease, my pink, my water lily, My butter-cup, my daisy, my daffy-down-dilly.
I am like a scarlet runner, that has lost its stick, Or a cherry, that is left for the dickey birds to pick; Like a watering pot, I'll weep, like a pavion, I'll sigh, Like a mushroom, I'll wither, like a cucumber, I'll die.
I am like a bumble-bee that don't know where to settle, And she is a dandelion, and a stinging nettle; My heart's like a beet-root, choked with chick-weed, My head's like a pumpkin, running off to seed.
I've a great mind to make myself a felo-de-se, And finish all my woes on the branch of a tree; But I won't! for I know that at my kicking you'd roar, And honor my death with a double encore.
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Hutchinson Family. "Horticultural Wife." Lyrics: "Written by a celebrated English gardener after disappointment in love." Music: Hutchinson Family (Singers). First line of text: "She's my myrtle, my geranium, My sunflower, my sweet marjoram." First line of main chorus: "Ho! ho! she's a fickle wild rose, A damask, a cabbage, a china rose." Boston:
- "Horticultural Wife" appears on Gregg Smith Singers and New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, The Great Sentimental Age (2 CDs, Moss Music Group CDX 5016, 1990). Most recorded recreations of nineteenth-century popular music are the ill-conceived efforts of people who really ought to know better. So, it makes me very happy to say that I have heard two recordings of "Horticultural Wife" and they are both pretty good. The performance on The Great Sentimental Age is very fine, indeed, and is particularly worth tracking down.
- It seems about certain, to me, that
Judson J. Hutchinson was the actual writer of this music. Judson was the principal composer and the main comic in the 1840s quartet. "Horticultural Wife" is easily one of the silliest songs I've ever run across, in spite of the reference to suicide in the last verse; and it must have been a real hoot to hear Judson sing it. That last verse, though, is sadly suggestive of his own end. - The third verse includes the word, "pavion." I've never seen a definition that fits this context at all clearly. If you believe you may know the intended meaning, please get in touch.
-- Alan Lewis
![[earliest Hutchinson Family publicity likeness]](http://www.oocities.org/unclesamsfarm/quartet342.jpg)
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