The Beginnings of Poetry

by Francis Barton Gummere

[333]. Northall, English Folk-Rhymes, prints a number of these; for example, p. 34, in Lancashire, Gorton lads sing:—

The Abbey Hey bulldogs drest i’ rags,

Dar’ no com’ out to the Gorton lads.

One thinks, too, of the Scottish feuds, and a favourite tune like that of Liddesdale:—

O wha dare meddle wi’ me?

O wha dare meddle wi’ me?

My name it is little Jock Elliot,

And wha dare meddle wi’ me?

See Chambers’s Book of Days, I. 200.

[334]. Vilmar, in his little Handbüchlein, p. 5, is full of righteous enthusiasm for an old cutthroat ballad, and full of righteous scorn for Heine’s cynical lines, “Spitzbübin war sie, er war ein Dieb;” the modern reader, for his sins, prefers Heine and chances the moral turpitude involved in his choice.