Her eyes have wounded me, i-wis, And I would change all mine for his Her fere, so worthy might I be, From hell to heaven, if one could see, [Nor half so free;" All lovers true, now listen unto me.] Now hearken to me while I tell, Who loves unknown and dares not tell I will her well, she wills me woe; In God's own greeting may she go, I would I were a throstlecock, Sweet maid! Between her kirtle and her smock I'd then be hid! The reader will easily note the struggle between our poet's conventional and quite literary despair and the fresh communal tone in such passages as we have ventured, despite Leigh Hunt's direful example, to put in italics. This poet was a clerk, or perhaps not even that, a gleeman; and he dwells, after the manner of his kind, 1 Fere, companion, lover. "I would give all I have to be her lover." 2 Superfluous verses; but the MS. makes no distinction. Free means noble, gracious. "If one could see everything between hell and heaven, one would find nothing so fair and noble.» Lark. The poem is translated from Böddeker, page 161 ff. upon a despair which springs from difference of station. But it is England, not France; it is a maiden, not countess or queen, whom he loves; and the tone of his verse is sound and communal at heart. True, the metre, afterwards a favorite with Burns, is one used by the oldest known troubadour of Provence, Count William, as well as by the poets of miracle plays and of such romances as the English 'Octavian'; but like Count William himself, who built on a popular basis, our clerk or gleeman is nearer to the people than to the schools. Indeed, Uhland reminds us that Breton kloer ("clerks") to this day play a leading part as lovers and singers of love in folk-song; and the English clerks in question were not regular priests, consecrated and in responsible positions, but students or unattached followers of theology. They sang with the people; they felt and suffered with the people—as in the case of a far nobler member of the guild, William Langland; and hence sundry political poems which deal with wrongs and suffering endured by the commons of that day. In the struggle of barons and people against Henry III., indignation made verses; and these, too, we owe to the clerks. Such a burst of indignation is the song against Richard of Cornwall, with a turbulent refrain which sounds like a direct loan from the people. One stanza, with this refrain, will suffice. It opens with the traditional "lithe and listen" of the ballad-singer : This, however, like many a scrap of battle-song, ribaldry exchanged between two armies, and the like, has interest rather for the antiquarian than for the reader. We shall leave such fragments, and turn in conclusion to the folk-song of later times. The England of Elizabeth was devoted to lyric poetry, and folksong must have flourished along with its rival of the schools. Few of these songs, however, have been preserved; and indeed there is no final test for the communal quality in such survivals. Certainly some of the songs in the drama of that time are of popular origin; but the majority, as a glance at Mr. Bullen's several collections will prove, are artistic and individual, like the music to which they were 2 Betray. Traitor. sung. Occasionally we get a tantalizing glimpse of another lyrical England, the folk dancing and singing their own lays; but no Autolycus brings these to us in his basket. Even the miracle plays had not despised folk-song; unfortunately the writers are content to mention the songs, like our Acts of Congress, only by title. In the comedy" called 'The Longer Thou Livest the More Foole Thou Art,' there are snatches of such songs; and a famous list, known to all scholars, is given by Laneham in a letter from Kenilworth in 1575. where he tells of certain songs, "all ancient," owned by one Captain Cox. Again, nobody ever praised songs of the people more sincerely than Shakespeare has praised them; and we may be certain that he used them for the stage. Such is the Willow Song' that Desdemona sings, an "old thing," she calls it; and such perhaps the song in 'As You Like It,'-'It Was a Lover and His Lass.' Nash is credited with the use of folk-songs in his 'Summer's Last Will and Testament'; but while the pretty verses about spring and the tripping lines, 'A-Maying,' have such a note, nothing could be further from the quality of folk-song than the solemn and beautiful Adieu, Farewell, Earth's Bliss.' In Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Knight of the Burning Pestle,' however, Merrythought sings some undoubted snatches of popular lyric, just as he sings stanzas from the traditional ballad; for example, his Go from my window, love, go; Go from my window, my dear; Will drive you back again, You cannot be lodged here, is quoted with variations in other plays, and was a favorite of the time, and like many a ballad appears in religious parody. A modern variant, due to tradition, comes from Norwich; the third and fourth lines ran: For the wind is in the west, From the time of Henry VIII. a pretty song is preserved of this same class: Westron wynde, when wyll thou blow! The smalle rain downe doth rayne; Or I in my bed agayne! This sort of song between the lovers, one without and one within, occurs in French and German at a very early date, and is probably much older than any records of it; as serenade, it found great favor The music in Chappell, page 141. with poets of the city and the court, and is represented in English by Sidney's beautiful lines, admirable for purposes of comparison with the folk-song:— "WHO is it that this dark night Underneath my window plaineth?" "It is one who, from thy sight Being, ah, exiled! disdaineth Every other vulgar light." The zeal of modern collectors has brought together a mass of material which passes for folk-song. None of it is absolutely communal, for the conditions of primitive lyric have long since been swept away; nevertheless, where isolated communities have retained something of the old homogeneous and simple character, the spirit of folk-song lingers in survival. From Great Britain, from France. and particularly from Germany, where circumstances have favored this survival, a few folk-songs may now be given in inadequate translation. To go further afield, to collect specimens of Italian, Russian, Servian, modern Greek, and so on, would need a book. The songs which follow are sufficiently representative for the purpose. A pretty little song, popular in Germany to this day, needs no pompous support of literary allusion to explain its simple pathos; still, it is possible that one meets here a distant echo of the tragedy of obstacles told in romance of Hero and Leander. When one hears this song, one understands where Heine found the charm of his best lyrics: OVER a waste of water The bonnie lover crossed, Ah, Elsie, darling Elsie, Fain were I now with thee; But waters twain are flowing, Dear love, twixt thee and me!1 Even more of a favorite is the song which represents two girls in the harvest-field, one happy in her love, the other deserted; the noise of the sickle makes a sort of chorus. Uhland placed with the two stanzas of the song a third stanza which really belongs to another tune; the latter, however, may serve to introduce the situation: I HEARD a sickle rustling, Ay, rustling through the corn: I heard a maiden sobbing Because her love was lorn. 1 Böhme, with music, page 94. "Oh let the sickle rustle! For I have found a lover, A lover, Where clover and violets blow." "And hast thou found a lover Where clover and violets blow? I stand here, ah, so lonely, So lonely, And all my heart is woe!" > 1 Two songs may follow, one from France, one from Scotland, bewailing the death of lover or husband. The Lowlands of Holland' was published by Herd in his 'Scottish Songs. A clumsy attempt was made to fix the authorship upon a certain young widow; but the song belies any such origin. It has the marks of tradition: MY LOVE has built a bonny ship, and set her on the sea, My love he built another ship, and set her on the main, There shall neither coif come on my head nor comb come in my hair; There shall neither coal nor candle-light come in my bower mair; Nor will I love another one until the day I die, For I never loved a love but one, and he's drowned in the sea. "O haud your tongue, my daughter dear, be still and be con tent; There are mair lads in Galloway, ye neen nae sair lament." For I never loved a love but one, and he's drowned in the sea. 1 Quoted by Child, Ballads,' iv. 318. 2 Separated, divided. An equivalent to upside down, "in the wrong direction." |