English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VIII

Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts

Where after he had seene the bloude
      Of Jesus Christ thus shed,
    And to the crosse his bodye nail'd,
      Awaye with speed he fled,
    Without returning backe againe                                    45
      Unto his dwelling place,
    And wandred up and downe the worlde,
      A runnagate most base.

    No resting could he finde at all,
      No ease, nor hearts content;                                    50
    No house, nor home, nor biding place;
      But wandring forth he went
    From towne to towne in foreigne landes,
      With grieved conscience still,
    Repenting for the heinous guilt                                   55
      Of his fore-passed ill.

    Thus after some fewe ages past
      In wandring up and downe,
    He much again desired to see
      Jerusalems renowne.                                             60
    But finding it all quite destroyd,
      He wandred thence with woe,
    Our Saviours wordes, which he had spoke,
      To verifie and showe.

    "I'll rest," sayd hee, "but thou shalt walke;"                    65
      So doth this wandring Jew,
    From place to place, but cannot rest
      For seeing countries newe;
    Declaring still the power of him,
      Whereas he comes or goes;                                       70
    And of all things done in the east,
      Since Christ his death, he showes.

    The world he hath still compast round
      And seene those nations strange,
    That hearing of the name of Christ,                               75
      Their idol gods doe change:
    To whom he hath told wondrous thinges
      Of time forepast and gone,
    And to the princes of the worlde
      Declares his cause of moane:                                    80

    Desiring still to be dissolv'd,
      And yeild his mortal breath;
    But, if the Lord hath thus decreed,
      He shall not yet see death.
    For neither lookes he old nor young,                              85
      But as he did those times,
    When Christ did suffer on the crosse
      For mortall sinners crimes.

    He hath past through many a foreigne place,
      Arabia, Egypt, Africa,                                          90
    Grecia, Syria, and great Thrace,
      And throughout all Hungaria:
    Where Paul and Peter preached Christ,
      Those blest apostles deare,
    There he hath told our Saviours wordes,                           95
      In countries far and neare.

    And lately in Bohemia,
      With many a German towne,
    And now in Flanders, as 'tis thought,
      He wandreth up and downe:                                      100
    Where learned men with him conferre
      Of those his lingering dayes,
    And wonder much to heare him tell
      His journeyes and his wayes.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

English and Scottish Ballads, Volume VIII

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