The Bridal of Andella
“The Bridal of Andella” is brilliant with Oriental colouring:
Rise up, rise up, Xarifa, lay the golden cushion down;
Rise up, come to the window, and gaze with all the town.
From gay guitar and violin the silver notes are flowing,
And the lovely lute doth speak between the trumpet’s lordly blowing,
And banners bright from lattice light are waving everywhere,
And the tall, tall plume of our cousin’s bridegroom floats proudly in the air:
Rise up, rise up, Xarifa, lay the golden cushion down;
Rise up, come to the window, and gaze with all the town.
Skilful weaving this. The lady would not look, however, because Andella, who was about to wed another, had been false to her. Ballad literature is scarcely a record of human constancy. In Ballad-land the percentage of faithless swains, black or white, clown or knight, is a high one. Was the law regarding breach of promise first formulated by a student of ballad lore, I wonder? Whatever else it may have effected, it seems to have put an end to ballad-writing, perhaps because it ended the conditions and circumstances which went to the making of balladeering.