For sextenè yer Joseph was old
Quane he was into Egypte sold.
But it is a far cry from this to
The feast was over in Branksome tower;
and the metre, when Scott's "Lay" appeared, seemed to be a novelty.
The Owl and the Nightingale.
in rhyming eight-syllable couplets, seems to have been written about 1250 (?). The theme is a debate, in the fashion of French poetry, between the owl and the nightingale, as to the comparative merit of their songs. The nightingale, deserting her art, rather feebly asserts the moral influence of her own music, and attacks the owl in a very personal strain of invective, reflecting on his want of good looks, and on his taste in food. We are far indeed from Keats's "Ode to the Nightingale", "If you are so great a teacher," replied the owl, "why do you not sing to men in Ireland, Norway, and Galloway?" La Fontaine might have made a witty poem on the dispute of the owl and the nightingale, but the poet was not a wit, and made a poor use of his opportunities. He is supposed, but not with certainty, to have been Nicholas of Guildford, who is credited with being neglected by the Bishop in the distribution of patronage.
The owl quotes the "Proverbs of King Alfred," of which there is a thirteenth century collection in rhyme; there are also the "Proverbs of Hendyng": the latter in stanzas of six lines each, the first two rhyming with each other, as do the last two, while the third line rhymes with the sixth: a very popular jingle.
Lyrics.
Far more interesting than these things, whether moral or religious, are the rhyming songs, the voice of the English people, laymen, not priests, the love lyrics (1300?), for example, one on Alison, beginning
Bytuene Mershe ant Averil
When spray biginneth to springe,
The lutel fowl hath hire wyll
On hyre lud to synge,