To the Devil that prompts ’em their treasonous parles!
Hampden to hell, and his obsequies’ knell
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!
Hold by the right, you double your might;
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight.
Indeed many modern poets, such as Burns, Scott, Browning, George Walter Thornbury, and Aytoun in his “Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,” have caught and prolonged the ancient note, with a literary skill not often vouchsafed to the actual, contemporary singers.
Here, for instance, is a single stanza from Thornbury’s overlong ballad, “The Three Troopers”:—
Into the Devil Tavern three booted troopers strode,
From spur to feather spotted and splashed
With the mud of a winter road.