Of rushes that grew by, and to ’em spoke
The prettiest posies; Thus our true loves ty’d;
This you may loose, not me, and many a one.
In the seventeenth century Sir William Davenant (1605–1668) speaks in the following mocking strain of such a ring:
I’ll crown thee with a garland of straw then
And I’ll marry thee with a rush ring.
The ballad called the Winchester Wedding has these lines:
Pert Strephon was kind to Betty,
And blithe as a bird in the spring;
And Tommy was so to Katy,