of the page and the foreboding dream, the last episode between Percy and Sir Henry the Montgomery. And these are the things, when we come to think of it, that cast an atmosphere about the story, raising it from a literal account of a bloody battle to a stirring tale of chivalry. To the ballad's basis in actual historical fact is to be attributed the use made of geographical names, the castles and rivers of north-west England about Newcastle, near the mouth of the river Tyne. And in the same way do we account for the familiar names of prominent Scotch families mentioned as having taken part with Douglas in his raid. Of the Scotch form of words made use of in the ballad, most will easily be recognized from their sound: those not so easy to understand are explained in the following list: About the figure of the gallant outlaw, Robin Hood, and the "merry men" who made up his band, cluster a great many stories that have come down to us in the form of ballads. Of these there is room for only one here-but it is one of the best. It will well repay those who care for Robin Hood to look up the tales of his every-day adventures; yet perhaps none of them show so much courtesy and manly, dignified pathos as this story of his death at the hands of his treacherous cousin. The circumstantial telling of the tale, with the use of proper names, is not to be taken as evidence that the ballad is based on fact: we are not even sure that Robin Hood existed as a historical person. The best scholarly opinion, however, is that an outlaw did live in early times whose exploits gave rise to many fictitious tales. In this example we find traces of a refrain, showing that the ballad was originally meant to be sung. The words which need explanation follow: dree: be able ring: door-knocker THE TWA CORBIES (Page 14) This ballad follows the unusual method of telling its story by suggestion. The tragedy has already taken place, but the brief dialogue of the ravens makes the story terribly clear. Few poems better exemplify the quality of condensation, typical of ballads as a class. A few words may need explanation: Although there is no positive evidence to connect this ballad with a historical incident, it is interesting to note that the story is definitely placed in the Scottish town of Stirling, north of which still stands an eminence known as "Heading Hill." It is not altogether clear whether the reference to the "round tables" indicates an indoor game or the custom of holding tournaments among the knights of a single court. The horse, “gowden graithd” before, is caparisoned in gold, unless the mention of silver shoes behind implies that his forefeet were shod with gold. LORD RANDAL The story told in this ballad has been current in England and on the Continent for hundreds of years, and appears in a great variety of forms. In the great collection of English ballads edited by Child there are nineteen versions, each differing from the others in nearly every detail. For example, the recurring line of address to the young man has many different forms, from the dignified "Lord Randal, my son," of this version, to the childish My wee, wee croudlin' doo doo." 66 THE BAILIFF'S DAUGHTER OF ISLINGTON (Page 18) The idea on which this ballad is founded is current in the songs of several countries of Europe. It has always been a favorite ballad in England, and the music to which it is commonly sung is still preserved. LATE BALLADS LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER Though this is a ballad written in modern times, it is singularly true to the spirit of the old ballad literature. Its strong sense of "action," its rapid movement, its direct simple phrasing, its sole concern with telling the story, not interpreting it or commenting on it, these things it has in common with the ballads of old England. Are there any qualities that mark it as nevertheless a modern ballad? LADY CLARE Although there is no attempt here to imitate the characteristic subject-matter of the old ballads, it is easy to find resemblances in the simple directness of treatment and style. LUCY GRAY "Written at Goslar, in Germany, in 1799. It was founded on a circumstance told me by my sister, of a little girl who not far from Halifax, in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snow-storm. Her footsteps were tracked by her parents to the middle of a lock of a canal, and no other vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced."-Wordsworth's note. THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS (Page 27) Longfellow writes in his diary of how he wrote the ballad on the "Wreck of the Hesperus, on the reef of Norman's Woe, in the great storm of a fortnight ago." He says: "I sat till twelve o'clock by my fire smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind to write the Ballad of the Schooner Hes perus; which I accordingly did. Then I went to bed, but could not sleep. New thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the ballad. It was three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas." LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI The idea of the poem seems to have been suggested by the name of an old translation that Keats had run across in his reading. But it was the name only that attracted Keats, for the older poem has nothing in common with his. It is not a poem to analyze in a search for "meaning," but one to read again and again for the haunting weirdness of its tone. EARL MARCH LOOK'D ON HIS DYING CHILD (Page 32) This is one of the most condensed stories to be found in our literature. Note how much is told and implied in the first stanza alone, and then observe how much of the subsequent story is read between the lines of condensed, rapid action. THE PRIDE OF YOUTH One of Madge Wildfire's songs in the Heart of Midlothian. Of this song Palgrave says: Scott has given us nothing more complete and lovely than this little song, which unites simplicity and dramatic power to a wild-wood music of the rarest quality. No moral is drawn, far less any conscious analysis of feeling attempted:-the pathetic meaning is left to be suggested by the mere presentment of the situation." ROSABELLE The ballad sung by Harold in the sixth canto of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The superstitious premonitions of danger are familiar features of old ballad literature, but through the poem, and especially in the descriptive stanzas near the end, there is a quality of diction and meter that marks the modern artist. In stanza three, inch is a Scotch word for "island." The game referred to in the sixth stanza is of course that of catching a suspended ring upon the sword-point as one rides by at full gallop. SHORT NARRATIVE POEMS LOVE This poem, with a few stanzas added at beginning and end, and with a few changes, was first published as the Introduction of a longer poem, begun but never completed, that was to be entitled The Ballad of the Dark Ladie. HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX (Page 42) The sense of galloping speed that this poem produces is due not alone to the strong anapestic meter, but to an impression of the landscape, which comes in a series of rapidly flashed pictures, as they would be seen by a preoccupied rider from the back of a fast moving horse. The poem has no historical foundation: Browning wrote it, as he says, "under the bulwark of a vessel, off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse, 'York,' then in my stable at home." |