Book of Old English Ballads | Page 6

the intellectual life of each is nourished
from the same treasury of views and associations, of myths and sagas;
when similar interests stir each breast; and the ethical judgment of all
applies itself to the same standard. In such an age the form of poetical
expression will also be common to all, necessarily solemn, earnest, and
simple."
When the conditions which produced the popular ballads become clear
to the imagination, their depth of rootage, not only in the community
life but in the community love, becomes also clear. We under stand the
charm which these old songs have for us of a later age, and the spell

which they cast upon men and women who knew the secret of their
birth; we understand why the minstrels of the lime, when popular
poetry was in its best estate, were held in such honour, why Taillefer
sang the song of Roland at the head of the advancing Normans on the
day of Hastings, and why good Bishop Aldhelm, when he wanted to get
the ears of his people, stood on the bridge and sang a ballad! These old
songs were the flowering of the imagination of the people; they drew
their life as directly from the general experience, the common memory,
the universal feelings, as did the Greek dramas in those primitive times,
when they were part of rustic festivity and worship. The popular
ballads have passed away with the conditions which produced them.
Modern poets have, in several instances, written ballads of striking
picturesqueness and power, but as unlike the ballad of popular origin as
the world of to-day is unlike the world in which "Chevy Chase" was
first sung. These modern ballads are not necessarily better or worse
than their predecessors; but they are necessarily different. It is idle to
exalt the wild flower at the expense of the garden flower; each has its
fragrance, its beauty, its sentiment; and the world is wide!
In the selection of the ballads which appear in this volume, no attempt
has been made to follow a chronological order or to enforce a rigid
principle of selection of any kind. The aim has been to bring within
moderate compass a collection of these songs of the people which
should fairly represent the range, the descriptive felicity, the dramatic
power, and the genuine poetic feeling of a body of verse which is still,
it is to be feared, unfamiliar to a large number of those to whom it
would bring refreshment and delight.
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
Chevy Chace
God prosper long our noble king,
Our liffes and safetyes all;
A
woefull hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall.
To drive the deere with hound and horne,
Erle Percy took his way;

The child may rue that is unborne
The hunting of that day.

The stout Erle of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His
pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summers days to take;
The cheefest harts in Chevy-Chace
To kill and beare away:
These
tydings to Erle Douglas came,
In Scotland where he lay.
Who sent Erie Percy present word,
He wold prevent his sport;
The
English Erle not fearing that,
Did to the woods resort,
With fifteen hundred bow-men bold,
All chosen men of might,

Who knew full well in time of neede
To ayme their shafts arright.
The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran,
To chase the fallow deere;
On
Munday they began to hunt,
Ere day-light did appeare;
And long before high noone they had
An hundred fat buckes slaine;

Then having din'd, the drovyers went
To rouze the deare againe.
The bow-men mustered on the hills,
Well able to endure;
Theire
backsides all, with speciall care,
That day were guarded sure.
The hounds ran swiftly through the woods,
The nimble deere to take,

That with their cryes the hills and dales
An eccho shrill did make.
Lord Percy to the quarry went,
To view the tender deere;
Quoth he,
"Erle Douglas promised
This day to meet me heere;
"But if I thought he wold not come,
Noe longer wold I stay."
With
that, a brave younge gentleman
Thus to the Erle did say:
"Loe, yonder doth Erle Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;

Full twenty hundred Scottish speres,
All marching in our sight.
"All men of pleasant Tivydale,
Fast by the river Tweede:"
"O cease
your sport," Erle Percy said,
"And take your bowes with speede.

"And now with me, my countrymen,
Your courage forth advance;

For never was there champion yett
In Scotland or in France,
"That ever did on horsebacke come,
But, if my hap it were,
I durst
encounter man for man,
With him to breake a spere."
Erle Douglas on his milke-white steede,
Most like a baron bold,

Rode formost of his company,
Whose armour shone like gold.
"Show me," sayd hee, "whose men you bee,
That hunt soe boldly
heere,
That, without my consent, doe chase
And kill my
fallow-deere."
The man that first did answer make
Was noble Percy hee;
Who
sayd, "Wee list not to declare,
Nor shew whose men wee bee.
"Yet will wee spend our deerest blood,
Thy cheefest harts to slay;"

Then