Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Many mediæval lyrics have come down to us; men already saw that any object of human desire or interest would serve as subject matter. Of course, there are love-songs. This is the closing verse of one written before Chaucer was born, probably about 1310. The lover has already declared "I wax mad, a maiden destroys me "; and then he describes her:

Lily-white is she
Her tint like rose on spray !
Who snatches my peace away.
Woman prudent and wise,
Of splendour she wins the prize.
Maid one of the best.

This Woman dwells in the West.

It has a curious abruptness about it, and the poet had not learned that it ruins a lyric to transpose words, to put them out of their obvious order.

Not all young men were so lovelorn as this youth. Here is the merry song of one who greatly preferred his freedom; an outspoken man of the late fifteenth century:

Á, a, a, o

Yet I love wheresoever I go.

In all the world is no merrier life
Than a young man's without a wife:
For he can live without any strife
In every place where he may go.

In every place he is loved above all
Among the maidens great and small,
In dancing, in piping, in running at ball,
In every place where he may go.

They set light store by married men,
When at the ball they run, also;
They cast their love to young men
In every place wheresoever he go.

Then maidens say: "Farewell, Jack!
Thy love is stuffed all in thy pack;
Thou bearest thy love behind thy back,"
In every place wheresoever he go.

The lyrics of these centuries are varied in their subjects; here is one which shows the Englishman's characteristic love of his pet animals; few, if any, races love their animals more whole-heartedly than we:

I have a gentle cock
Crows me the coming of day;
Early he doth rouse me
My Mattin-prayers to say.

I have a gentle cock,
The best bred I could get:
His comb of coral red,
His tail it is of jet.

I have a gentle cock
Born of parents two;
His comb of coral red
And his tail of indigo.

His legs are pearly grey,
So elegant and small,
His spurs of silvery white,
Up to the quick and all.

Of crystal are his eyes,
Set right into amber:
And every night he percheth him
Within my lady's chamber.

Nearly a hundred years earlier one of those humorous lyrics, which are just as natural as those of love or of natural scenery and the rest, had been written, possibly by Chaucer. Those unfortunate people who imagine that all poetry is solemn and dry can correct themselves by this. Yet it is not made of that pure fun coming out of a heart free from care and as light as a feather, nor of that mixed fun with a sharp edge on it which is called wit; but of surface fun which covers without hiding a vein of seriousness and concern. Chaucer was not, or did not think he was, as well off as he desired to be; so he expressed these facts in his Complaint to his Purse, which I have put into modernly spelt English:

To you my purse and to no other wight,
Complain I, for you be my lady dear;
I am so sorry now, that you be light
That for certain, if you make me heavy cheer
I would as lief be laid upon my bier,
For which unto your mercy thus I cry:

"Be heavy again-or else must I die."
Now vouchsafe this day, day, ere it be night,
That I of you the blissful sound may hear,
Or see your colour like the sun, bright,
That of yellowness never had a peer.
You are my life, you are my heart's steer, 1
Queen of comfort and of good company.

"Be heavy again-or else must I die."
Now purse, that art to me my life's light,
And saviour, that is, down in this world here,
Out of this trouble help me by your might.
Since that you will not be my treasurer,
For I am shaved as close as any friar,
But I pray unto your courtesy

"Be heavy again or else must I die."

If Chaucer wrote this, he did so probably at the end of his life, when he was badly off. If so, the King to whom he sent it was Henry IV, not Richard II, as some say.

The wide range of English Song cannot be appreciated unless we know something of the religious and devotional lyrics. This Christmas slumber-song, coming down to us from the age of the York and Lancaster wars, may serve as a very charming instance:

"Lullay, my Child, and weep no more;
Sleep, and now be still:
The King of bliss Thy Father is,
As it was His will."

1 i.e., rudder.

This other night, I saw a sight-
A Maid a cradle keep-
And ever she sang and said among:
"Lullay, my Child, and sleep."

"I may not sleep, but I may weep,
I am so woe-begone;

Sleep I would, but I am cold,
And clothes have I none."

Methought I heard the Child answered,
And to His Mother He said:
"My Mother dear, what do I here,
In Crib why am I laid ?

I was born and laid before
Beasts both ox and ass:
My Mother mild, I am thy Child,
But He My Father was.

Adam's guilt man had spilt, 1
That sin grieveth Me sore.
Man, for thee, here shall I be
Thirty winters and more.

Dole 'tis to see, here shall I be
Hanged upon the Rood:
With scourges beat, My wounds all wet,
And give My flesh for thy good.

Here shall I be, hanged on a Tree,
And die as it is skill;2

That I have bought, lose I will not,
It is My Father's Will.

A spear so sharp shall pierce My Heart,
For deeds that I have done:
Father of Grace, is it Thou hast
Forgotten Thy little Son ?

Without any pity, here shall I pay,
And make My flesh all sore,
Adam I wis, this death it is

For thee, and for many more."

It is not possible to include many of these " Middle English" songs, charming and interesting as they are

1 Ruined.

2 Reasonable.

But this one, beautiful in its joy and freshness, its religious genuineness and simplicity, its love of animals and of the country, and not least attractive in its playful fun, gathers up into itself the leading characteristics of Englishmen, as they lived and felt and enjoyed themselves, in that reign of Henry VII, which some of us were inclined to connect with money-making dulness out of our national wool. That notion and this poem are as far as the poles asunder:

[blocks in formation]

1 Flagon, or flask. 2 Time, while.

3 Names of his sheep.

▲ Until.

5 Το.

« PreviousContinue »