The British tradition of Morris Dancing had been performed exclusively by men for several hundred years. During the First World War, when the male mortality rate in some English towns and villages approached seventy percent, the tradition would have been lost were it not for the women who chose to carry it on.

Austin John Marshall wrote this beautiful song as a tribute to the widows, sweethearts, sisters and daughters of those men; their dancing helped to kept the memory of their young men alive.

It’s fifty long springtimes since she was a bride
But still you may see her at each Whitsuntide
In a dress of white linen and ribbons of green
As green as her memories of loving

The feet that were nimble tread carefully now
As gentle a measure as age do allow
Through groves of white blossom by fields of young corn
Where once she was pledged to her true love

The fields they stand empty, the hedges grow free
No young men to tend them or pastures go see
They have gone where the forests of oak trees before
Have gone to be wasted in battle

Down from the green farmlands and from their loved ones
Marched husbands and brothers and fathers and sons
There’s a fine roll of honour where the maypole once stood
And the ladies go dancing at Whitsun

There’s a straight row of houses in these latter days
Are covering the downs where the sheep used to graze
There’s a field of red poppies, a wreath from the Queen
But the ladies remember at Whitsun

And the ladies go dancing at Whitsun