Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/185

 Early English Poetry.

��165

��It is this : " Let me make the songs of a people and I care not who makes their laws."

A ballad is a story in verse whose in- cidents awaken the sympathies and ex- cite the passions of those who listen. The song is designed to express deep emotion, joy or sorrow, hope or fear and appeals directly to the feehngs. Here, often, the singing is more than the sentiment ; the tones of the chanter are often more touching than the thoughts of the Emperor. A national ode must have a national element in it ; it must reflect the passions that burn in the people's breasts. Local topics, too, may call forth a general interest when they describe trials or triumphs which all may share. Says Carlyle : " In a peas- ant's death-bed there may be the fifth act of a tragedy. In the ballad which details the adventures and the fate of a partisan warrior or a love-lorn knight, — the foray of a border chieftain or the lawless bravery of a forrester ; a Doug- lass, or a Robin Hood, — there may be the materials of a rich romance. What- ever be the subject of the song, high or low, sacred or secular, there is this peculiarity about it, it expresses essentially the popular spirit, the common senti- ment, which the rudest breast may feel, yet which is not beneath the most cul- tivated. It is peculiarly the birth of the popular affections. It celebrates some event which the universal heart clings to, which, for joy or sorrow, awaken the memories of every mind." Hence we learn the history of a nation's heart from their songs as we learn their martial history from their armor.

The oldest song, set to music, which is now known is the following :

" Summer is y-comen in,

Loude sing cuckoo : Groweth seed, Andbloweth mead, And springeth the wood now;

Sing Cuckoo !

��Ewe bleateth after lamb, Lowth after calf cow; Bullock starteth. Buck resteth Merry sing cuckoo! Cuckoo, Cuckoo I Well sings thou cuckoo! Ne swick thou never now.

The old ballads seem to have no pa- ternity. They spring up like flowers, spontaneously. Most of them are of unknown date and unknown authorship. The structure, language, and spelling of many have been so modified, by succes- sive reciters, that their original form is now lost. We have a short summary of King Arthur's history, the great hero of romance, in a comparatively modern ballad. I will quote it :

Of Brutus' blood, in Brittane born.

King Arthur I am to name: Through Christendome and Heathynessc

Well known is my worthy fame. In Jesus Christ I doe beleeve;

I am a Christyan bom: The Father, Sone and Holy Gost

One God I doe adore. In the four hundreed nintieth yeere

Over Brittaine I did rayne. After my Savior Christ his byrth:

What time I did maintaine. The fellowshippe of the table round

Soe famous in those dnyes; Whereatt a hundred noble Knights

And thirty sat alwayes : Who for their deeds and martiall feates.

As bookes dou yet record. Amongst all other nations

Wer feared through the world. And in the castle of Tayntagill,

King Uther me begate Of Agyana, a bewtyous ladye.

And come of hie estate. And when I was fifteen yeer old,

Then was I crowned Kinge; All Brittaine that was att an uprore

I did to quiett bring And drove the Saxons from the realme,

Who had oppressed this land; All Scotland then throughe manly feates

I conquered with my hand. Ireland, Denmarke, Norway,

These countryes won I all Iseland, Getheland and Swothland;

And mad their kings my thrall I conquered all Galya,

That now is called France; And slew the hardyc FroU in Field

My honor to advance. And the ugly gyant Dynabus

Soe terrible to vewe. That in Saint Barnard's Mount did lye,

By force of armes, I slew:

�� �