t68
��Early English Poetry.
��To whom the eldest thus began;
Dear father, mind, quoth she Before your face to do you good.
My biood shall render'd be; And for your sake, my bleeding heart
Shall here be cut in twain Ere that I see your reverend age
The smallest grief sustain. And so wilt I the second said;
Dear father for your sake The worst of all extremities
I '11 gently undertake. And serve your highness night and day
With diligence and love; That sweet content and quietness
Discomforts may remove. In doing so you glad my soul
The aged king replied: But what sayst thou my youngest giil
How is thy love ally 'd ? My love quoth young Cordelia then
Which to your grace I owe Shall be the duty of a child
And that is all I 'II show.
This honest pledge the King despised and banished CordeHa, The ballad ac- cords with the drama in the catastrophe. Both have the same moral and the ■same characters. The ballad is doubtless the earlier form of the story. Possibly the minstrel and dramatist may have borrowed from a common source. Good thoughts, good tales and noble deeds, like well-worn coins, sometimes lose their date and must be estimated by weight. Ballad poetry is written in va- rious measures and with diverse feet. The rhythm is easy and flows along trip- pingly from the tongue with such regu- lar emphasis and cadence as to lead in- stinctively to a sort of sing-song in the recital of it. Ballads are more fre- quently written in common metre lines of eight and six syllables alternating. Such is the famous ballad of " Chevy Chace," * which has been growing in popular esteem for more than three hun- dred years. Ben Jonson used to say he would rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse on poetry, says of it : " I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglass that I found not my heart
• 7th Tol. Child'* British Poets.
��more moved than with a trumpet." Addison wrote an elaborate review of it in the seventieth and seventy-fourth numbers of the Spectator. He there demonstrates that this old ballad has all the elements in it of the loftiest exist- ing epic. The moral is the same as that of the Iliad :
" God save the king and bless the land
In plenty, joy and peace And grant henceforth that foul debate
Twixt noblemen may cease,"
Addison, in Number 85 of the Spec- tator, also commends that beautiful and touching ballad denominated "The Children in the Wood." He observes, " This song is a plain, simple copy of nature, destitute of the helps and orna- ments ot art. The tale of it is a pretty, tragical story and pleases for no other reason than because it is a copy of na- ture." It is known to every child as a nursery song or a pleasant story. A stanza or two will reveal its pathos and rhythm. The children had been com- mitted by their dying parents to their uncle :
The parents being dead and gone
The children home he takes. And brings them straite unto his house
Where much of them he makes. He had kept these pretty babes
A twelve month and a daye But for their wealth he did desire
To make them both away
An assassin is hired to kill them ; he leaves them in a deep forest :
These pretty babes with hand in hand
Went wandering up and downe ; But never more could see the man
Approaching from the town : Their pretty lippes with black-berries
Were all besmeared and dyed And when they saw the darksome nigiit
They sat them down and cried . Thus wandered these poor innocents
Till death did end their grief. In one another's armes they dyed
Ax wanting due relief: No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives Till robin red-breast piously
Did cover them with leaves.
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