THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates
Dorking

[Mid September 1946]

Dear Byard

Certainly – tho’ I don’t think Green sleeves (do you know the words?) or “Lovely Joan” (do you know the words?) are suitable for church.
– Shakespeare you will remember says that the 100^th Psalm does not go well with the tune of Greensleeves.¹  (The point being that metrically it does fit & was probably so sung in some churches).
yrs
R. Vaughan Williams

1.  The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II sc.1: Mrs Ford on the words in her letter from Falstaff: “…but they do no more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth Psalm to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’”.