A Bundle of Ballads

Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Songs, English -- England -- Texts
HE.
     "Yet I you re-de, take good heed
       When men will think and say:
     Of young, of old, it shall be told,
       That ye be gone away
     Your wanton will for to fulfil,
       In green wood you to play;
     And that ye might from your delight
       No longer make delay.
     Rather than ye should thus for me
       Be called an ill wom-an,
     Yet would I to the green wood go,
       Alone, a banished man."

          SHE.
     "Though it be sung of old and young,
       That I should be to blame,
     Theirs be the charge that speak so large
       In hurting of my name:
     For I will prove, that faithful love
       It is devoid of shame
     In your distress and heaviness
       To part with you the same:
     And sure all tho that do not so,
       True lovers are they none:
     For, in my mind, of all mankind
       I love but you alone."

          HE.
     "I counsel you, Remember how
       It is no maiden's law
     Nothing to doubt, but to run out
       To wood with an out-law;
     For ye must there in your hand bear
       A bow to bear and draw;
     And, as a thief, thus must ye live,
       Ever in dread and awe;
     By which to you great harm might grow:
       Yet had I liever than
     That I had to the green wood go
       Alone, a banished man."

          SHE.
     "I think not nay, but as ye say,
       It is no maiden's lore;
     But love may make me for your sake,
       As ye have said before,
     To come on foot, to hunt and shoot
       To get us meat and store;
     For so that I your company
       May have, I ask no more;
     From which to part, it maketh mine heart
       As cold as any stone:
     For, in my mind, of all mankind
       I love but you alone."

          HE.
     "For an out-law, this is the law,
       That men him take and bind;
     Without pit-ie, hang-ed to be,
       And waver with the wind.
     If I had nede (as God forbede!)
       What rescues could ye find?
     Forsooth, I trow, you and your bow
       Should draw for fear behind.
     And no mervayle:  for little avail
       Were in your counsel than:
     Wherefore I to the wood will go,
       Alone, a banished man."

          SHE
     "Full well know ye, that women be
       Full feeble for to fight;
     No womanhede it is indeed
       To be bold as a knight;
     Yet, in such fear if that ye were
       Among enemies day and night,
     I would withstand, with bow in hand,
       To grieve them as I might,
     And you to save; as women have
       From death many a one:
     For, in my mind, of all mankind
       I love but you alone."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
A Bundle of Ballads

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