She's gone wi' Gipsy Davy.
(The Gipsy Laddy.)
Twice it lifted its bonnie blue ee,
Thae looks gae through the saul o' me.
(The Cruel Mother.)
There was no maen made for that lady,
In bower where she lay dead,
But a' was for the bonnie babe,
That lay blabbering in her bleed.
(Lord Ingram and Child Wyett.)
O, then she stood and better she stood,
And never did shed a tear,
Till once she saw lier seven brethren slain,
And her father she loved sae dear.
(The Douglas Tragedy.)
And when he came to her bower she was pale and wan,
But she grew red and ruddy, when Glenlogie came in.
(Glenlogie.)
The dramatic power of expression, that which illumines it with a touch
of action, is not less remarkable than that of direct phraseology:--
"Hold up, hold up, Lord William," she says,
"I fear that you are slain."
"It's nothing but the shadow of my scarlet cloak,
That shines in the water sae plain."
(Earl Brand.)
And aye she served the lang table,
With white bread and with brown,
And aye she turned her round about,
Sae fast the tears fell down.
(Fair Annie.)
She turned her head ou her left shoulder,
Saw her girdle hang on a tree,
O, God bless those that gave me that,
They 'll never give more to me.
(Lary Maissy.)
When I rose up in the morn,
My goodly palace for to lea,
I knocked at my lord's chamber door,
But never a word wad he speak to me.
(Jamie Douglass.)
The King looked over his left shoulder,
And a grim look looked he,
Earl Martial an' 't were na for my oath
Or hanged thou shouldst be.
(Queen Elinor's Confession.)
The look cast over the shoulder is a very fa-miliar action in the
ballads, as is also that where an angry man strikes the table with his
hand and "keps" it with his knee. Every one who receives the letter is
described as first smiling and then having his eyes filled with tears,
as in Sir Patrick Spence, and almost in an exact repetition of the
language, and there are numerous actions and phases which are the common
stock of the ballad poets. The idea of the exclusive rights to poetical
property and of the sin of plagiarism does not seem to have occurred
to them, and they took a striking image or an effective phrase wherever
they found it as a part of the common stock of poetry. These familiar
and striking phrases doubt-less added to the effect, being recognized
as old friends by the audience, and, like the repetitions of words and
action by a number of persons in the same ballad, such as by the
members of a family in succession denying the prayer of an unfortunate,
emphasizing and deepening the impression. Certain adjectives also became
attached to words as a part of their property, such as red to gold and
wan to water, and are essential parts of the ballad language, which add
to its effect by constant repetition.
One of the charms of these ancient ballads is the appreciation of the
effects of nature, given sometimes with a magical effect of suddenness
and originality. What can be more effective, for instance, than the
touch of beauty and charm in the tragedy of Babylon:--
He's killed the maid and he's laid her by
To bear the red rose company.
And can we not feel the magic of the note of elfin horn, touching the
heart with irresistible call through the summer air, in the opening to
Hind Etin?--
Lady Margaret sits at her bower door,
Sewing her silken seam;
She heard a note in Elmond wood,
And wished she there had been.
The voice of the unseen sea gives a note of deep solemnity and terror
to the supernatural landscape through which Thomas, the Rhymer, journeys
with the elfin queen:--
And they rode on and farther on,
And they waded the river above the knee,
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.
How the strength of a lover's thought is illuminated by the touch of
nature itself in Willie and Alison:--
When he was in his saddle set,
And slowly ridin' on his way,
He had more mind o' Alison
Than he had o' the light o' day.
These touches of the power of nature upon human action, and revealing
human thought, are scattered throughout the ballads, and have the effect
of perfect naturalness and simplicity, as though the heart and not the
mind spoke in them.
A specimen of the ancient ballad in its most perfect strength, absolute
and concise in its construction, without wandering into irrelevancies
and incongruities, as many of them do, and in which the appalling
tragedy strikes with a sudden blow upon the heart at its close, is
Edward. It has all the characteristic features of the ballads, in
the vivid colors of nature illuminating and intensifying his dramatic
dialogue, while it has the mist of blood in the witchlike questions of
its opening, and the passion of hatred and despair in its close.
Ballads of similar form and subject are to be found in Scandinavian
literature, and counterparts to its methods of revelation in various
English and Scottish ballads, but none have so pure a construction and
so perfect an effect as this:--
"Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
Edward, Edward?
Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
And why sae sad gang yee, O?"
"O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
Mither, mither.
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
And I had nae mair but hee, O."
"Your hauke's bluid was nevir sae reid,
Edward, Edward.
Your hauke's bluid was nevir sae reid,
My deir son, I tell thee, O."
O, I hae killed my red roan steed,
Mither, mither.
O, I hae killed my red roan steed
That was sae fair and free, O."
"Your steed was auld and ye hae gat mair,
Edward, Edward.
Your steed was auld and ye hae got mair.
Sum other dule ye drie, O."
"O, I hae killed my fadir deir,
Mither, mither.
O, I hae killed my fadir deir.
Alas! and wae is mee, O."
"And whatten penance will ye drie for that,
Edward, Edward?
And whatten penance will ye drie for that,
My deir son? Now tell mee, O."
"I 'll set my feit in yonder boat,
Mither, mither.
I 'll set my feit in yonder boat,
And I 'll fare ovir the sea, O."
"And what will you doe wi' your towirs and your ha',
Edward, Edward?
And what will you doe wi' your towirs and your ha',
That were sae fair and free, O?"
"I 'll let them stand tul they down fa',
Mither, mither.
I 'll let them stand tul they down fa',
For here nevir mair maun I bee, O."
"And what wul ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
When ye gang ovir the sea, O?"
"The warlde's room, late them beg thrae life,
Mither, mither.
The warlde's room, late them bag thrae life,
For them nevir mair wul I see, O."
"And what wul ye leave to your ain mither, deir,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leave to your ain mither, deir,
My deir son? Now tell mee, O."
"The curse of hell frae me sail ye beir,
Mither, mither.
The curse of hell frae me sail ye beir,
Sic counseils ye gave to me, O."
Edward was communicated to Bishop Percy from Scotland by Lord Hailes,
and there is some affectation in the ancient spelling, but it is
undoubtedly genuine, and, as Professor Child remarks, "as spelling will
not make an old ballad, so it will not unmake one."
One of the most famous and best known of the ancient Scottish ballads
is that entitled Waly, Waly, gin Love be Bony, or, as it is sometimes
called, Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament, which was first published in
Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany. It has numerous variants embodying the
language of the lament in stories of a more dramatic character, founded
on a tradition of the Douglas family, but this has the strength and
simplicity of an original:--
O, waly, waly, up the bank,
And waly, waly, down the brae;
And waly, waly, yon burn-side,
Where I and my love wont to gae.
I leaned my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bowed, and syne it brak,
Sae my true love did lightly me.
O, waly, waly, but love be bony,
A little time, while it is new;
But when it's auld it waxeth cauld,
And fades away like morning dew.
O, wherefore should I brush my head?
O, wherefore should I kaim my hair,
For my true love has me forsook,
And says he 'll never love me mair.
Now, Arthur's seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall ne'er be fyld by me;
Saint Anton's well shall be my drink
Since my true love's forsaken me.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
And shake the green leaves off the tree
O, gentle death, when wilt thou come,
For of my life I am weary.
'T is not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw's inclemency;
'T is not the cauld as makes me cry,
But my love's heart grown cauld to me.
When we came in by Glasgow town,
We were a comelie sight to see;
My love was clad in black velvet,
And I myself in cramoisie.
But had I wist before I kist
That love had been sae ill to win;
I'd locked my heart in a case of gold,
And pinned it with a silver pin.
Oh, oh, if my young babe was born,
And set upon the nurse's knee;
And I mysell were dead and gone,
For a maid again I 'll never be.
The burden of this lament, its simple passion appealing to the popular
heart and its melody holding the ear, has been perpetuated through the
generations since it was first sung. It has been printed in all forms
and variations in the broadsides and penny song books, as well as in the
critical collections of poetry, solaced the sentimental feeling of
the dairy maid as well as haunted the vision of Charles Lamb, and
its refrain may be heard to-day in the burlesque choruses of the negro
minstrel stage. A very interesting example is given by Professor Child
of the way in which an old ballad of perfect form and construction may
be made incoherent and shapeless in a broadside copy, mere matter of
"silly sooth" for old age or primitive ignorance, without losing the
fine flower of pathos and feeling, or the grace of expression, in its
disconnected and ejaculatory stanzas. It is also interesting as an
example, of which many others could be given, of the effect of oral
tradition passing from minds of native strength, if without education,
down to and through those of a lower order of intelligence, from whom
now only the debris of the ancient songs and ballads can be obtained.
It is from a broadside printed in Edinburgh, without date, but of
considerable antiquity, and entitled Arthur's Seat shall be My Bed,
etc., or Love in Despair.
Come lay me soft and draw me near,
And lay thy white hand over me;
For I am starving in the cold,
And thou art bound to cover me.
O, cover me in my distress,
And help me in my miserie;
For I do wake, when I should sleep,
All for the love of my dearie.
My rents they are but very small,
For to maintain my love withall;
But with my labour and my pain,
I will maintain my love with them.
O, Arthur's seat shall be my bed,
And the sheets shall never be filed by me,
St. Anthony's well shall be my drink,
Since my true love's forsaken me.
Should I be bound, that may go free?
Should I love them that love not me?
I 'll rather travel into Spain,
Where I 'll get love for love again.
And I 'll cast off my robes of black,
And will put on the robes of blue;
And I will come to some other land
To see if my love will on me rue.
It is not the cold that makes me cry,
It is not the weet that wearies me;
Nor is it the frost that freezes fell,
But I love a lad, and I dare not tell.
Oh, faith is gone, and truth is past,
And my true love's forsaken me;
If all be true that I hear say,
I 'll mourn until the day I die.
Oh, if I had nere been born,
That to have died, when I was young;
Then I had never wet my cheeks
For the love of any woman's son.
Oh, oh, if my young babe was born,
And set upon the nurse's knee;
And I myself were dead and gone,
For a maid again I shall never be.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
And blow the green leefs off the tree;
O gentle Death, when wilt thou come,
For of my life I am wearie.
As in all single hearts and primitive natures, the visible features of
death, the white shroud and the grave, "hap'd with the sods sae green,"
make a deep impression, and the imagination concerning the loved one
lost is not lifted to spiritual forms, but dwells upon the painful
figures of the charnel house. The ghosts that visit the living have the
fatal breath of decaying mortality, and are summoned back by the cock to
the winding sheet and the worm. The ballads that deal with this subject
are all in the same strain, and repeat the same phrases. The lady asks
her dead lover if there is any room at his head or any room at his feet
in his new bed, and he answers that there is none, it is made so narrow,
and that the worms are his only bedfellows; and warns her that he cannot
give the kiss she craves, for his breath would be fatal. Sometimes the
images of mortality are extremely powerful as well as grotesque, as in
the ballad of Sweet William's Ghost:--
My meikle toe is my gavil post,
My nose is my roof tree,
My ribs are kebars to my house;
There is no room for thee.
Sometimes they have a touch of homely pathos, which relieves them from
the conventional note of sorrow, as when the three sons of The Wife of
Usher's Well are called back to the grave by the crowing cock, and the
youngest says:--
Fare ye weel, my mother, dear;
Farewell to barn and byre,
And fare ye weel, the bonny lass,
That kindles my mother's fire.
One of the most interesting specimens of the ballads of this kind, as
they exist to-day, borrowed in a modified form from the ancient, but
embodying a still popular superstition, is The Unquiet Grave, recently
taken down from the lips of a young girl in Sussex. It is founded on
the belief, common to many primitive peoples, that excessive weeping
disturbs the repose of the departed, and has a touch of that natural
originality of description and that abruptness which presupposes a
quickness of appreciation, which does not require an elaborate story to
make the connection intelligible, characteristic of popular poetry,
and which shows that the elements of mind to which it is addressed are
always the same:--
The wind doth blow to-day, my love,
And a few small drops of rain.
I never had but one true love--
In the cold grave she was lain.
I 'll do as much for my true love
As any young man may,
I 'll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.
The twelvemonth and a day being up,
The dead began to speak:
"O, who sits weeping on my grave
And will not let me sleep?"
"'T is I, my love, sits on your grave
And will not let you sleep;
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,
And that is all I seek."
"You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
But your breath smells earthly strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips
Your time will not be long."
'T is down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk:
The finest flower that e'er was seen
Is withered on the stalk.
The stalk is withered dry, my love,
So will our hearts decay:
So make yourself content, my love,
Till God calls you away.
By far the larger number of the popular ballads had their origin in
Scotland, and they are also of much finer quality than those of England.
Even if the question of the origin of the ballad of Chevy Chace should
be decided in favor of the latter, it would simply be localized upon the
Border within the limit of Scottish influence. The English ballads are
mostly heavy and dull, imperfect in form and expression, in comparison
with the Scottish, and show few signs of the depth and glow of feeling
in the burning words of the latter. The English ballads relating to
King Arthur are greatly inferior in strength and spirit to the
prose chronicles, and their dealing with the marvelous is coarse and
commonplace in comparison with the spiritual and majestic mystery of the
Welsh cycle of Arthurian romance. And the English ballads continued
to degenerate, rather than improve, from the rude vigor of some of the
Arthurian ballads, and took on the element of coarse humor which is
characteristic of the Robin Hood cycle, from which nearly every gleam of
poetry is eliminated. It may be said that the degeneracy of the English
popular ballad was due to the spread of education among the people, and
the development of their genius in more strictly literary forms under
the influence of Chaucer and his associates. But the spread of education
and the increase of literary production among the English people was by
no means so general as to affect the quality of the popular ballad at
this period, and certainly less than that which prevailed in Scotland at
a later time, when the production of popular poetry was in its fullest
flower. The adventures of the English outlaws, of whom Robin Hood,
however mythical his actual existence, was the type, were not less
stirring and full of the natural elements of poetry than those of the
reivers and cattle thieves of the Scottish Border, but the ballads of
the former cycle are only full of a vulgar peasant humor, while the
latter are illuminated with the light of battle, and have the quarter
staff and broken pate in place of the spear and the bleeding breast. Of
Robin Hood it is said:--
Then Robin took them both by the hand,
And danced about the oke tree;
For three merry men and three merry men
And three merry men are we.
While the Lord of Branxholm cries:
Gae warn the water broad and wide,
Gae warn it sune and hastilie;
He that winna ride for Telfer's Kyle
Let him neer look in the face o' me.
and the difference in the spirit is reflected in the quality of
the verse, the one dull and commonplace, suited to an audience of
heavy-faced rustics in an alehouse, and the other full of fire and
vigor, fit to be chanted in the dining hall of a Border chief. It is
impossible to analyze ethnologically the causes of the great superiority
of the Scottish popular poetry, or to define how much of the elevation
of feeling and appreciation of the magic of nature came from the greater
admixture of the Celtic element, which in its turn was given force and
vigor, directness of expression and coherence of construction by the
stronger nature of the invading element, which, for the want of a more
definite term, is called Saxon. The effect of these influences is merely
conjectural, as is also that of the country itself, its natural scenery,
the disturbed life of the people, and the ferment of the popular mind.
It can only be said that there was something in the national genius of
the Lowland Scotch different from that of their more stolid neighbors
at the south and their more mystical neighbors at the north, and which
fitted them for the production of popular poetry in song and ballad at
once elevated and impassioned, and which has resulted in a quantity and
quality which no other province of the world has rivaled. It is known
over the world, and has been translated into almost every literary
language of Europe. To the English reader it is only necessary to give
the titles to recall the verses that cling to the memory, and express
the deepest glow of passion and pathos in words whose magic melody is
beyond the reach of art, and which are winged with a force above the
powers of uninspired speech. The Border Widow tells how she buried her
slain husband:--
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat,
I digged a grave and laid him in,
And happd him with sod sae green.
Lord Randal comes home to his mother from his false love's poisoned
banquet:--
O, where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son,
O, where hae ye been, my handsome young man;
I have been to the greenwood; mither, mak my bed soon,
For I'm wearie wi hunting and fain wald lie down."
The lady of the House of Airlie cries out from the burning reek to the
cruel Edom o' Gordon:--
"Were my good lord but here this day,
As he's awa wi Charlie;
The dearest blood o' a' thy men
Wad sloken the lowe o' Airlie."
Johnnie Armstrong gives his last "Good Night" in defiance:--
O, how John looked over his left shoulder,
And to his merry men thus spoke he;
"I have asked grace of a graceless face,
No pardon here for you and me."
Mary Hamilton cries from the gallows-tree in a burst of anguish:--
O, little did my mother ken,
The day she cradled me,
The land I was to travel in,
The death I was to dee.
These verses, and many like them, cling to the tongues and have sunk
deep into the hearts of men, and will live until the speech in which
they were created has passed away. The Flower of Yarrow will always
utter her melodious lament so long as there is English poetry, and the
Border moss-troopers will ride with spear in hand and "splent on spauld"
until the valleys of the Tweed and the Tyne are inhabited by an alien
race, and the songs in which they are sung have perished like those of
the Assyrian shepherds.
The collection and study of folk-song is being pursued with a vigor and
a scholarly diligence which promises to leave no corner of the world
unransacked, and no people, however simple and savage, neglected, and
very valuable treasures of poetry have been and are being collected,
which speak to the heart with the native eloquence of unsophisticated
feeling and thought, and which give a more accurate knowledge of
national temperament and of the stages of the development of the human
intellect than any material remains or any historical records. But none
have as yet been discovered, or are likely to be, which have a stronger
power of original poetry, passion, and pathos, or which reveal a more
vigorous and noble native genius than the ballads and songs which were
produced within the limits of the little province between the Grampians
and the Border.
LADY NAIRNE AND HER SONGS.
The supreme felicity of lyric song is extremely rare even in the
greatest masters of the art, and seems to come from something outside
of themselves, some accident of the moment, some almost fortuitous
intermingling of sound with meaning, which could have been attained by
no ordinary inspiration and no deliberate skill, however accomplished
and sure and strong the poetical organ which produced it. It is this
supreme felicity, when it occurs, by which the lyric song of man, with
only the elements of harsh and prosaic speech and common words to frame
it, rivals the magic of the bird's note in joyous ecstasy or sorrow, and
floods the heart, as it captivates the ear, with emotions sweeter and
deeper, more ethereal and more mysterious, than life had seemed able
to give. It is well known that singers, whose skill in the use of their
vocal organs is the result of highly trained art, giving certainty and
assurance to a great natural gift, and able at all times to command what
seems the full extent of their power, sometimes have moments when they
surpass themselves and exceed the limits of any art, when the voice
touches a note of magic melody, which they can reach by no conscious
effort even in the highest moments of inspiration, and which seems to
come from some power not at their conscious command. It seems to be the
same in lyric poetry, and when the power does come, then we have the
touch which makes it song, as the thrill of the lark, and the ecstasy
of the mocking-bird in the tropic night, are songs. The magic may not
be prolonged through an entire lyric. It seldom is. It may be only in a
single line or in a single verse. It may not be even the highest strain
of feeling or nobility of sentiment, and may even carry with it little
definite meaning upon analysis. It derives its power from the magic
melody as much as from the feeling or the intelligible sense of the
words, and its effect is indefinable by any law of the understanding.
In its highest estate it combines the most penetrating feeling with not
only perfect but magic melody, but it sometimes comes in a wild refrain,
in which the meaning merely floats in the words, and the rhythm, the
accent, the song itself, so to speak, is predominant. For the first
instance there is the perfect example of Burns, the rapture caught once
for a single strain in a song, which does not rise above the level of
his accomplished skill otherwise, and which has the keenest and most
penetrating feeling, joined to, and permeated by, the perfect and magic
melody:--
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Never met and never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 1
For the second instance, where the melody is predominant over the
meaning, and where the poet seemed only to be affected by the desire to
frame words that would sing themselves and merely symbolize his thought,
there are very many examples in the peasant poetry and folk-song of
Scotland,--refrains that have no direct connection with the song, but,
like the note of a second flute in a concerto, intensify the effect of
the first strain by a kindred, yet diverse accentuation, as
The broom blooms bonnie and says it is fair;