Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/140

118 felt, to giving a knife or other sharp implement; it would cut friendship or love. Thus Gay, in his Shepherd’s Week:

I have heard in Durham of a schoolmaster who wished to reward one of his pupils with a knife, but dared not do so without receiving from the boy a penny, in order that the knife might be purchased, not given. This feeling extends to Denmark, if indeed the Danish settlers did not bring the belief into England. It was defied by a versifier of the last century (the Rev. Samuel Bishop, A.D. 1796), who presented a knife to his wife on her fifteenth wedding day, with a copy of verses so spirited and full of character that I cannot forbear transcribing them. They are taken from Locker’s Lyra Elegantiarum:

A knife, dear girl, cuts love, they say,

Mere modish love perhaps it may;

For any tool of any kind

Can separate what was never joined;

The knife that cuts our love in two

Will have much tougher work to do—

Must cut your softness, worth, and spirit,

Down to the vulgar size of merit;

To level yours with common taste

Must cut a world of sense to waste;

And from your single beauty’s store

Clip what would dizen out a score.

The selfsame blade from me must sever

Sensation, judgment, sight—for ever!

All memory of endearments past,

All hope of comforts long to last,

All that makes fourteen years with you

A summer—and a short one too—

All that affection feels and fears,

When hours without you seem like years.

Till that be done—and I’d as soon

Believe this knife would clip the moon,

Accept my present undeterred,

And leave their proverbs to the herd.

If in a kiss—delicious treat—

Your lips acknowledge the receipt,