For we were up as soon as any day O!
And for to fetch the summer home,[[762]]
The summer and the May O!
For summer is a-come O!
And winter is a-gone O!
What the poet can do with a fragment of communal song, with a heart full of communal sympathy, and with that final touch of art and individual reflection, may be felt by any one who will read in the echo of this rough old chorus those exquisite verses of Herrick to Corinna.
Songs that may pass as communal drama hold something of this old refrain of labour; so, for example, in the flytings of winter with summer or with spring,[[763]] which seem to go back in England to times before the conquest. A refrain, with change of “summer” to “winter” in alternate stanzas, runs through a ballad printed by Uhland:[[764]]—
Alle ir herren mein,
Der Sommer ist fein!
Another refrain is sung “by all the youth,” when a mock fight between the two is ended, and winter lies at jocund summer’s feet:—