’Tis I am weeping lonely,
And all my heart is woe!”
O rustle, sickle, rustle,
And sound along the corn!
I heard a maid, had lost her love,
A weeping all forlorn.
No stress, of course, is to be laid on this particular case, which simply serves to show how unquestioned improvisation of quatrains on one of the little tragedies common in rural life could be combined with the traditional refrain of a reapers’ dance, and so pass into popular lyric.
Often this making of a lyric calls in the aid of repetition, and an iterated line serves as thread to tie the quatrains together; such poems have been noted already,[[1046]] and were called more or less artificial. But they certainly suggest now and then the improvisation of quatrains at the dance, and belong there originally; a clear case may be given from Steiermark.[[1047]]
To thee I’ve gone often
So happy and gay;