Chatterton has a song of which the burden runs:—
“Mie love ys dedde,
Gone to his death-bedde
Al under the Wyllowe-tree.”
Spenser designates the gruesome tree as “the Willow worn of forlorn paramours;” and there are several songs in which despairing lovers invoke the Willow-tree.
“Ah, Willow, Willow!
The Willow shall be
A garland for me,
Ah, Willow! Willow.”
Herrick tells us how garlands of Willow were worn by neglected or bereaved lovers, and how love-sick youths and maids came to weep out the night beneath the Willow’s cold shade. The following wail of a heart-broken lover is also from the pen of the old poet:—