5 10 "Now Christ thee save, thou reverend friar, I pray thee tell to me, If ever at yon holy shrine My true love thou didst see." "And how should I know your true love From many another one?" "O, by his cockle hat, and staff, And by his sandal shoone.* But chiefly by his face and mien, His flaxen locks that sweetly curl'd "O, lady, he is dead and gone! And at his head a green grass turfe, Within these holy cloysters long And 'playning of her pride. Here bore him barefac'd on his bier 25 And many a tear bedew'd his grave "And art thou dead, thou gentle youth! And didst thou dye for love of me! "O, weep not, lady, weep not soe; 35 *These are the distinguishing marks of a Pilgrim. The chief places of devotion being beyond sea, the pilgrims were wont to put cockle-shells in their hats to denote the intention or perforin ance of their devotion. Warb. Shakesp. Vol. viii. p. 224. VOL. I. K "O, do not, do not, holy friar, My sorrow now reprove; For I have lost the sweetest youth, And nowe, alas, ! for thy sad losse, For thee I only wisht to live, "Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrowe is in vaine : For violets pluckt the sweetest showers J Our joys as winged dreams doe flye, Since grief but aggravates thy losse, 66 "O, say not soe, thou holy friar ; I pray thee, say not soe: 40 45 50 For since my true-love dyed for mee, 55 'Tis meet my tears should flow. And will he ne'er come again? Will he ne'er come again? Ah! no, he is dead and laid in his grave, His cheek was redder than the rose ; But he is dead and laid in his grave: "Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever: One foot on sea and one on land, To one thing constant never. Hadst thou been fond, he had been false, For young men ever were fickle found, "Now, say not so, thou holy friar, I pray thee say not soe; My love he had the truest heart : And art thou dead, thou much-lov'd youth, And didst thou dye for mee? Then farewell home; for ever-inore A pilgrim I will bee. But first upon my true-loves grave My weary limbs I'll lay, And thrice I'll kiss the green-grass turf, "Yet stay, fair lady; rest awhile See through the hawthorn blows the cold wind, And drizzly rain doth fall." "O, stay me not, thou holy friar ; O, stay me not, I pray; No drizzly rain that falls on me, But haply, for my year of grace * Is not yet past away, Might I still hope to win thy love, "Now farewell grief, and welcome joy *The year of probation or noviciate. 100 105 For since I have found thee, lovely youth, **As the foregoing song has been thought to have suggested to our late excellent poet Dr. Goldsmith, the plan of his beautiful ballad of "Edwin and Emma" (first printed in his "Vicar of Wakefield ") it is but justice to his memory to declare, that his poem was written first, and that if there is any imitation in the case, they will be found both to be indebted to that beautiful old ballad "Gentle Herdsman," &c. printed in the second volume of this work, which the Doctor had much admired in manuscript, and has finely improved. See Vol. ii. Book i. song xiv. ver. 37. pag. 62, &c. THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK. Reliques OF ANCIENT POETRY, &c. SERIES THE FIRST.-BOOK III. I. THE MORE MODERN BALLAD OF CHEVY CHACE. At the beginning of this volume we gave the old original Song of "Chevy Chace." The reader has here the more improved edition of that fine Heroic ballad. It will afford an agreeable entertainment to the curious to compare them together, and to see how far the latter bard has excelled his predecessor, and where he has fallen short of him. For tho' he has every where improved the versification, and generally the sentiment and diction; yet some few passages retain more dignity in the ancient copy; at least the obsoleteness of the style serves as a veil to hide whatever might appear too familiar or vulgar in them. Thus, for instance, the catastrophe of the gallant Witherington is in the modern copy exprest in terms which never fail at present to excite ridicule : whereas in the original it is related with a plain and pathetic simplicity, that is liable to no such unlucky effect: See the stanza in page 11, which, in modern orthography, &c. would run thus: "For Witherington my heart is woe, So again the stanza which describes the fall of Montgomery ts somewhat more elevated in the ancient copy: |