Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 15
General
Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 15
Literature -- Collections
Now who this merry roundel
Hath sung with such renown?
That have two lusty woodsmen
At Freiberg in the town,--
Have sung it fresh and fairly,
And drunk the cool red wine:
And who hath sat and listened?--
Landlady's daughter fine!
[20] Translated from Boehme 'Altdeutsches Liederbuch,'
Leipzig, 1877, page 233. Lovers of folk-song will find this
book invaluable on account of the carefully edited musical
accompaniments. With it and Chappell, the musician has ample
material for English and German songs; for French, see
Tiersot, 'La Chanson Populaire en France.'
[21] The garden in these later songs is constantly a symbol
of love. To pluck the roses, etc., is conventional for making
love.
What with the more modern tone, and the lusty woodsmen, one has
deserted the actual dance, the actual communal origin of song; but one
is still amid communal influences. Another little song about the heart
and the key, this time from France, recalls one to the dance itself,
and to the simpler tone:--
Shut fast within a rose
I ween my heart must be;
No locksmith lives in France
Who can set it free,--
Only my lover Pierre,
Who took away the key![22]
[22] Quoted by Tiersot, page 88, from 'Chansons a Danser en
Rond,' gathered before 1704.
Coming back to England, and the search for her folk-song, it is in
order to begin with the refrain. A "clerk," in a somewhat artificial
lay to his sweetheart, has preserved as refrain what seems to be a bit
of communal verse:--
Ever and aye for my love I am in sorrow sore;
I think of her I see so seldom any more,[23]--
rather a helpless moan, it must be confessed.
[23] Boeddeker's 'Old Poems from the Harleian MS. 2253,' with
notes, etc., in German; Berlin, 1878, page 179.
Better by far is the song of another _clericus_, with a lusty little
refrain as fresh as the wind it invokes, as certainly folk-song as
anything left to us:--
Blow, northern wind,
Send thou me my sweeting!
Blow, northern wind,
Blow, blow, blow!
The actual song, though overloaded with alliteration, has a good
movement. A stanza may be quoted:--
I know a maid in bower so bright
That handsome is for any sight,
Noble, gracious maid of might,
Precious to discover.
In all this wealth of women fair,
Maid of beauty to compare
With my sweeting found I ne'er
All the country over!
Old too is the lullaby used as a burden or refrain for a religious
poem printed by Thomas Wright in his 'Songs and Carols':--
Lullay, myn lykyng, my dere sone, myn swetyng,
Lullay, my dere herte, myn owyn dere derlyng.[24]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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