Book of Old English Ballads | Page 6

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 Douglas swore a solempne oathe,?And thus in rage did say;
"Ere thus I will out-braved bee,?One of us two shall dye:?I know thee well, an erle thou art;?Lord Percy, soe am I.
"But trust me, Percy, pittye it were,?And great offence, to kill?Any of these our guiltlesse men,?For they have done no ill.
"Let thou and I the battell trye,?And set our men aside."?"Accurst bee he," Erle Percy sayd,?"By whome this is denyed."
Then stept a gallant squier