Irish Gaelic: Singer, going to the water-meadow, meets a girl who has cut rushes. He bids her join him in the forest. She reproaches him; he'd promised a home and fine clothing, "all in payment for the bench of roses and the trouble I had over it"
An Binnsin Luchra (The Little Bench [or Bunch] of Rushes) Complete text(s) *** A *** From Helen Creighton, Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick, #22, p. 54. Collected from Angelo Dornan, Elgin, N. B. A fragment of a song probably originally Gaelic. "I'll deck you out in splendour With costly jewels my Arabian queen, I mean my charming Mary Ann With your bonny bunch of rushes green." "'Tis hard for to refuse you Although you have led me astray I'll go with you although I know My days I'll spend in mourning."
Fowke/MacMillan notes to 64: "This is an English version of the widely known Irish Gaelic song ... In JFSS III 17 Lucy Broadwood gives a version from Waterford, Ireland, with alternate English and Gaelic stanzas." Fowke/MacMillan includes the "Arabian Queen" reference that ties it to Creighton-SNewBrunswick.
Broadside Bodleian Harding B 11(393), which is in English, is -- like Fowke/MacMillan -- just about seduction; it refers to "any queen" rather than "Arabian queen" and shares the reference to hunting dogs and singing birds with Fowke/MacMillan. -BS