Inscribed Three King's Daughters Inside my father's close Fly away oh my heart away Sweet apple blossom blows (The poem is fully written out verso) The poem in full is as follows:- MY FATHER'S CLOSE. ( Old French.) Inside my father's close, (Fly away O my heart away!) Sweet apple-blossom blows So sweet. Three kings' daughters fair, (Fly away O my heart away!) They lie below it there So sweet. ‘Ah!’ says the eldest one, 10 (Fly away O my heart away!) ‘I think the day's begun So sweet.’ ‘Ah!’ says the second one, (Fly away O my heart away!) ‘Far off I hear the drum So sweet.’ ‘Ah!’ says the youngest one, (Fly away O my heart away!) ‘It's my true love, my own, 20 So sweet. ‘Oh! if he fight and win,’ (Fly away O my heart away!) ‘I keep my love for him, So sweet: Oh! let him lose or win, He hath it still complete.’ The theme of beautiful maidens seated in a pastoral setting was carried further in the painting of 1864 Green Summer.
The poem is My Father's Close, a translation from the Old French by Rossetti, published in his Poems of 1870. Although the composition is quite different, the design is clearly related to the pen and ink drawing entitled King's Daughters, now at Bowood, which Burne-Jones worked on at Little Holland House in 1858, a photograph of this is let into the front of the album's binding. The music is unidentified but could have been written by several members of the circle. It is the type of song that Burne-Jones's fiance Georgiana MacDonald was fond of singing.
