Low, low he lies who holds my heart,
The sea is rolling fair above;
Go, little bird, and tell him this,--
Go, little bird, and fear no harm,--
Say I am still his faithful love,
Say that to him I stretch my arms.
[35] See Tiersot, 'La Chanson Populaire,' p. 103, with the
music. The final verses, simple as they are, are not rendered
even remotely well. They run:--
Que je suis sa fidele amie,
Et que vers lui je tends les bras.
Another song, widely scattered in varying versions throughout France,
is of the forsaken and too trustful maid,--'En revenant des Noces.'
The narrative in this, as in the Scottish song, makes it approach the
ballad.
Back from the wedding-feast,
All weary by the way,
I rested by a fount
And watched the waters' play;
And at the fount I bathed,
So clear the waters' play;
And with a leaf of oak
I wiped the drops away.
Upon the highest branch
Loud sang the nightingale.
Sing, nightingale, oh sing,
Thou hast a heart so gay!
Not gay, this heart of mine:
My love has gone away,
Because I gave my rose
Too soon, too soon away.
Ah, would to God that rose
Yet on the rosebush lay,--
Would that the rosebush, even,
Unplanted yet might stay,--
Would that my lover Pierre
My favor had to pray![36]
[36] Tiersot, p. 90. In many versions there is further
complication with king and queen and the lover. This song
is extremely popular in Canada.
The corresponding Scottish song, beautiful enough for any land or age,
is the well-known 'Waly, Waly':--
Oh 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 lean'd 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[37] me.
Oh waly, waly, but love be bonny
A little time, while it is new;
But when 'tis auld it waxeth cauld,
And fades away like morning dew.
Oh wherefore should I busk my head?
Or wherefore should I kame 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 fyled by me;
Saint Anton's well shall be my drink,
Since my true-love has forsaken me.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw
And shake the green leaves off the tree?
O gentle Death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I am weary.
'Tis not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw's inclemency;
'Tis not sic cauld that makes me cry,
But my love's heart grown cauld to me.
When we came in by Glasgow town,
We were a comely sight to see;
My love was clad in the black velvet,
And I myself in cramasie.
But had I wist, before I kissed,
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 were born,
And set upon the nurse's knee,
And I myself were dead and gone,
[And the green grass growing over me!]
[37] Lightly (a verb) is to treat with contempt, to
undervalue. Compare the burden quoted by Chappell, p. 458,
and very old:--
The bonny broome, the well-favored broome,
The broome blooms faire on hill;
What ailed my love to lightly me,
And I working her will?
The same ballad touch overweighs even the lyric quality of the
verses about Yarrow:--
"Willy's rare, and Willy's fair,
And Willy's wondrous bonny,
And Willy heght[38] to marry me
Gin e'er he married ony.
"Oh came you by yon water-side?
Pu'd you the rose or lily?
Or came you by yon meadow green?
Or saw you my sweet Willy?"
She sought him east, she sought him west,
She sought him brade and narrow;
Syne, in the clifting of a craig,
She found him drowned in Yarrow.[39]
[38] Promised.
[39] Child's _Ballads_, vii. 179.
Returning to Germany and to pure lyric, we have a pretty bit which is
attached to many different songs.
High up on yonder mountain
A mill-wheel clatters round,
And, night or day, naught else but love
Within the mill is ground.
The mill has gone to ruin,
And love has had its day;
God bless thee now, my bonnie lass,
I wander far away.[40]
[40] Boehme, p. 271.
But there is a more cheerful vein in this sort of song; and the
mountain offers pleasanter views:--
Oh yonder on the mountain,
There stands a lofty house,
Where morning after morning,
Yes, morning,
Three maids go in and out.[41]
The first she is my sister,
The second well is known,
The third, I will not name her,
No, name her,
And she shall be my own!
[41] The rhyme in German leaves even more to be desired.
Finally, that pearl of German folk-song, 'Innsprueck.' The wanderer
must leave the town and his sweetheart; but he swears to be true, and
prays that his love be kept safe till his return:--
Innsprueck, I must forsake thee,
My weary way betake me
Unto a foreign shore,
And all my joy hath vanished,
And ne'er while I am banished
Shall I behold it more.
I bear a load of sorrow,
And comfort can I borrow,
Dear love, from thee alone.
Ah, let thy pity hover
About thy weary lover
When he is far from home.
My one true love! Forever
Thine will I bide, and never
Shall our dear vow be vain.
Now must our Lord God ward thee,
In peace and honor guard thee,
Until I come again.
In leaving the subject of folk-song, it is necessary for the reader
not only to consider anew the loose and unscientific way in which this
term has been employed, but also to bear in mind that few of the above
specimens can lay claim to the title in any rigid classification. Long
ago, a German critic reminded zealous collectors of his day that when
one has dipped a pailful of water from the brook, one has captured no
brook; and that when one has written down a folk-song, it has ceased
to be that eternally changing, momentary, spontaneous, dance-begotten
thing which once flourished everywhere as communal poetry. Always in
flux, if it stopped it ceased to be itself. Modern lyric is
deliberately composed by some one, mainly to be sung by some one else;
the old communal lyric was sung by the throng and was made in the
singing. When festal excitement at some great communal rejoicing in
the life of clan or tribe "fought its battles o'er again," the result
was narrative communal song. A disguised and baffled survival of this
most ancient narrative is the popular ballad. Still more disguised,
still more baffled, is the purely lyrical survival of that old
communal and festal song; and the best one can do is to present those
few specimens found under conditions which preserve certain qualities
of a vanished world of poetry.
[Illustration: _RUSSIAN CURSIVE WRITING._
A public document of Kamtschatka, written on birch bark.]
It may be asked why the contemporary songs found among Indian tribes
of our continent, or among remote islanders in low stages of culture,
should not reproduce for us the old type of communal verse. The answer
is simple. Tribes which have remained in low stages of culture do not
necessarily retain all the characteristics of primitive life among
races which had the germs of rapidly developing culture. That communal
poetry which gave life to the later epic of Hellenic or of Germanic
song must have differed materially, no matter in what stage of
development, from the uninteresting and monotonous chants of the
savage. Moreover, the specimens of savage verse which we know
retain the characteristics of communal verse, while they lack its
nobler and vital quality. The dance, the spontaneous production,
repetition,--these are all marked characteristics of savage verse.
But savage verse cannot serve as model for our ideas of primitive
folk-song.
[Signature: F. B. Gummere]