Book of Old English Ballads | Page 2

report of
events which have taken place, not a study of a man's mind nor an
account of a man's feelings. The true balladist is never introspective; he
is concerned not with himself but with his story. There is no
self-disclosure in his song. To the mood of Senancour and Amiel he
was a stranger. Neither he nor the men to whom he recited or sang
would have understood that mood. They were primarily and
unreflectively absorbed in the world outside of themselves. They saw
far more than they meditated; they recorded far more than they
moralized. The popular ballads are, as a rule, entirely free from
didacticism in any form; that is one of the main sources of their
unfailing charm. They show not only a childlike curiosity about the
doings of the day and the things that befall men, but a childlike
indifference to moral inference and
justification. The bloodier the
fray the better for ballad purposes; no one feels the necessity of
apology either for ruthless aggression or for useless blood-letting; the
scene is reported as it was presented to the eye of the spectator, not to
his moralizing faculty. He is expected to see and to sing, not to
scrutinize and meditate. In those rare cases in which a moral inference
is drawn, it is always so obvious and elementary that it gives the
impression of having been fastened on at the end of the song, in
deference to ecclesiastical rather than popular feeling.
The social and intellectual conditions which fostered
selfunconsciousness, --interest in things, incidents, and adventures

rather than in moods and inward experiences,--and the unmoral or non
moralizing attitude towards events, fostered also that delightful naivete
which contributes greatly to the charm of many of the best ballads; a
naivete which often heightens the pathos, and, at times, softens it with
touches of apparently unconscious humour; the naivete of the child
which has in it something of the freshness of a wildflower, and yet has
also a wonderful instinct for making the heart of the matter plain. This
quality has almost entirely disappeared from contemporary verse
among cultivated races; one must go to the peasants of remote parts of
the Continent to discover even a trace of its presence. It has a real, but
short-lived charm, like the freshness which shines on meadow and
garden in the brief dawn which hastens on to day.

This frank, direct play of thought and feeling on an incident, or series
of incidents, compensates for the absence of a more perfect art in the
ballads; using the word "art" in its true sense as including complete,
adequate, and beautiful handling of subjectmatter, and masterly
working out of its possibilities. These
popular songs, so dear to the
hearts of the generations on whose lips they were fashioned, and to all
who care for the fresh note, the direct word, the unrestrained emotion,
rarely touch the highest points of poetic achievement. Their charm lies,
not in their perfection of form, but in their spontaneity, sincerity, and
graphic power. They are not rivers of song, wide, deep, and swift; they
are rather cool, clear springs among the hills. In the reactions against
sophisticated poetry which set in from lime to time, the popular
ballad--the true folk-song--has often been exalted at the expense of
other forms of verse. It is idle to attempt to arrange the various forms of
poetry in an order of absolute values; it is enough that each has its own
quality, and, therefore, its own value. The drama, the epic, the ballad,
the lyric, each strikes its note in the complete expression of human
emotion and experience. Each belongs to a particular stage of
development, and each has the authority and the enduring charm which
attach to every authentic utterance of the spirit of man under the
conditions of life.
In this wide range of human expression the ballad follows the epic as a
kind of aftermath; a second and scattered harvest, springing without
regularity or nurture out of a rich and unexhausted soil. The epic
fastens upon some event of such commanding importance that it marks
a main current of history; some story, historic, or mythologic; some
incident susceptible of extended narrative treatment. It is always, in its
popular form, a matter of growth it is direct, simple, free from
didacticism; representing, as Aristotle says, "a single action, entire and
complete." It subordinates character to action; it delights in episode and
dialogue; it is content to tell the story as a story, and leave the
moralization to hearers or readers. The popular ballad is so closely
related to the popular epic that it may be said to reproduce its qualities
and characteristics within a narrower compass, and on a smaller scale.
It also is a piece of the memory of the