What has happened? Well, in Normandy, too, and in another tongue, men are singing much the same thing in the same way:
A la fontenelle
Qui sort seur l'araine,
Trouvai pastorella
Qui n'iert pas vilaine…
Merci, merci, douce Marote,
N'oçiez pas vostre ami doux,
and this Norman and the Englishman were singing to a new tune, which was yet an old tune re-set to Europe by the Provence, the Roman Province; by the troubadours—Pons de Capdeuil, Bernard de Ventadour, Bertrand de Born, Pierre Vidal, and the rest, with William of Poitou, William of Poitiers. Read and compare; you will perceive that the note then set persists and has never perished. Take Giraud de Borneil—
Bel companhos, si dormetz o velhatz
Non dortmatz plus, qu'el jorn es apropchatz—
and set it beside a lyric of our day, written without a thought of Giraud de Borneil—
Heigh! Brother mine, art a-waking or a-sleeping:
Mind'st thou the merry moon a many summers fled?
Mind'st thou the green and the dancing and the leaping?
Mind'st thou the haycocks and the moon above them creeping?…
Or take Bernard de Ventadour's—
Quand erba vertz, e fuelha par
E'l flor brotonon per verjan,
E'l rossinhols autet e clar
Leva sa votz e mov son chan,
Joy ai de luy, e joy ai de la flor,
Joy ai de me, e de me dons maior.
Why, it runs straight off into English verse—
When grass is green and leaves appear
With flowers in bud the meads among,
And nightingale aloft and clear
Lifts up his voice and pricks his song,
Joy, joy have I in song and flower,
Joy in myself, and in my lady more.