As posed in the year 1265. (It is inserted in Percy's Reliques, as is also an elegy on the death of Edward I. written in 1307.) Another, on the defeat of the French army by the Flemings, in 1301; and a ballad against the Scots, composed in 1306. the first of these pieces may be considered as anterior to the composition of Robert of Gloucester's poem, and the others were written very soon after its conclusion, Mr. Warton seems to have employed them as terms of comparison, for the purpose of ascertaining, by internal evidence, the dates of several love-songs, devotional and moral poems, and other smaller pieces contained in the same miscellany. He was perhaps mistaken in referring some of these to so early a period as the year 1200; but they certainly appear to have been written near the middle of the thirteenth century; and as specimens of our earliest lyric compositions are not unworthy of our curiosity, the reader is here presented with two, one of which is a moral ditty, and the other a love-song; both copied from the volume of ancient songs published by Mr. Ritson, who has corrected some trifling mistakes, committed by Mr. Warton in decyphering the obsolete characters of the ancient MSS. A DITTY On the uncertainty of this Life, and the approach of Death. Winter wakeneth all my care; Of this world's joy, how it go'th all to nought! Now it is, and now it n'is, All so it ne'er, n'were I wis; That many men saith, sooth it is, All goeth but God's will: All we shall die, though us like ill.3 All that grain me groweth green; And shield us from hell, For I n'ot7 whither I shall, ne how long here dwell. As if it had never been. Though we may dislike it ? • Presently. • Passeth away. 4 Fadeth. 6 The meaning seems to be, " May "Jesu help us so that his help may be manifest.” 7 Ne wot, know not. LOVE SONG. Between March and Averil, When spray beginneth to spring, In their lud' to sing. I live in love-longing For seemlokest of all thing She may me bliss bring, I am in her bandoun.3 An hendy4 hap I have y-hent,5 On hen her hair is fair enow, With middle small and well y-mok. ⚫ Songs, or odes. The word leudi occurs, in the same sense, in the barbarous Latin of the times, as Mr. Pinkerton has justly observed. Seemliest, handsomest. 3 Command. Fr. ♦ Lucky. 6 I think. 5 Caught. 7 Alighted. • This apparently inexplicable phrase is perhaps an error of the transcribers. • Lovesome, lovely. 10 Laughs. But she will me to her take, Long to liven I shall forsake, Nights, when I wend and wake, For thee my wonges 4 waxeth wan; Longing is y-lent me on! In world is none so wyter man, Her swire is whiter than the swan, An hendy hap, &c. I am, for wooing, all for-weak; 1 Unless. 3 In faith. Fr. 5 Wise. 7 Neck. 9 Wear, pool. "Vexed, anxious. • Mate. 4 Cheeks. Sax. 6 Excellence, bontés. Fr. 8 Virgin. Sax. 10 Bereave me of. It is not impossible that Chaucer, at the same time that he ridiculed the romances, may have intended to laugh at the fashionable love-songs of his age; for in his rhyme of Sir Thopas he has borrowed two, apparently affected phrases, from the foregoing composition. Sire Thopas fell in love-longing All when he heard the throstle sing. And afterwards: Me dreamed all this night, pardie, To suffer. Sax. Awhile. 3 Perhaps," Most graceful in dress." The word occurs in the same sense in Dunbar's "Twa mariit Women," verse 78. Ungain is still used in the provinces for the opposite idea; and gore appears to be the same with gear, dress, from the Saxon gearwa; vestis. 4 Song. |