The door I’ll not open
However you moan,
a striking contrast to the complacency of a schnaderhüpfl, said to be one of the oldest recorded, taken down by Tobler at Appenzell, in 1754:—
Mine, mine, mine, O my love is fine,
And to-night he shall come to me;
Till the clock strikes eight, till the clock strikes nine,
My door shall open be.
But one must stay by the dancing throng, the rivalry of the singers, the question and answer, a succession of stanzas thus tending to group about a theme given by the occasion and kept in mind by a constant suggestion of rime and repeated or slightly varied verses; from all this it is highly probable that one will learn something of the communal origins of lyric poetry. Thus there is nothing immediate or suggestive of the dance in a detached quatrain with question and answer like this:[[1036]]—
Why crying, my pretty,
By the tree there alone?