Mollie Charane / and Other Ballads / By / George Borrow / London: / Printed for Private Circulation / 1913.
Collation:—Square demy octavo, pp. 28; consisting of: Half-title (with blank reverse) pp. 1–2; Title-page, as above (with notice regarding the American copyright upon the centre of the reverse) pp. 3–4; and Text of the Ballads pp. 5–28. There are headlines throughout, each page being headed with the title of the particular Ballad occupying it. At the foot of p. 28 is the following imprint: “London: / Printed for Thomas J. Wise, Hampstead, N.W. / Edition limited to Thirty Copies.” The signatures are A (a quarter-sheet of two leaves), B (a half-sheet of four leaves), and C (a full sheet of eight leaves), each inset within the other.
Thirty Copies only were printed.
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| Mollie Charane.
[O, Mollie Charane, where got you your
gold?]
Previously printed in Once a Week, vol. vi, 1862, pp.
38–39.
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| The Danes of Yore.
[Well we know from saga]
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A Survey of Death. [My
blood is freezing, my senses reel]
Another version of this poem was printed in The Monthly
Magazine, vol. lvi, 1823, p. 245; and reprinted (with some
small textual variations) in Romantic Ballads, 1826, pp.
169–170. As the poem is a short one, and as the two
versions afford a happy example of the drastic changes Borrow
introduced into his text when revising his Ballads, I give them
both in full:
1823
Perhaps ’tis folly, but still I
feel
My heart-strings quiver, my senses reel,
Thinking how like a fast stream we range,
Nearer and nearer to life’s dread change,
When soul and spirit filter away,
And leave nothing better than senseless clay.
Yield, beauty, yield, for the grave
does gape,
And, horribly alter’d, reflects thy
shape;
For, oh! think not those childish charms
Will rest unrifled in his cold arms;
And think not there, that the rose of love
Will bloom on thy features as here above.
Let him who roams at Vanity Fair
In robes that rival the tulip’s glare,
Think on the chaplet of leaves which round
His fading forehead will soon be bound,
And on each dirge the priests will say
When his cold corse is borne away,
Let him who seeketh for wealth,
uncheck’d
By fear of labour, let him reflect
That yonder gold will brightly shine
When he has perish’d, with all his line;
Tho’ man may rave, and vainly boast,
We are but ashes when at the most.
1913
My blood is freezing, my senses reel,
So horror stricken at heart I feel;
Thinking how like a fast stream we range
Nearer and nearer to that dread change,
When the body becomes so stark and cold,
And man doth crumble away to mould.
Boast not, proud maid, for the grave doth
gape,
And strangely altered reflects thy shape;
No dainty charms it doth disclose,
Death will ravish thy beauty’s rose;
And all the rest will leave to thee
When dug thy chilly grave shall be.
O, ye who are tripping the floor so light,
In delicate robes as the lily white,
Think of the fading funeral wreath,
The dying struggle, the sweat of death—
Think on the dismal death array,
When the pallid corse is consigned to clay!
O, ye who in quest of riches roam,
Reflect that ashes ye must become;
And the wealth ye win will brightly shine
When burried are ye and all your line;
For your many chests of much loved gold
You’ll nothing obtain but a little mould.
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| Desiderabilia Vitæ.
[Give me the haunch of a buck to eat]
Previously printed, with a slightly different text, and
arranged in six lines instead of in three four-line stanzas, in
Lavengro, 1851, vol. i, p. 306.
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| Saint Jacob. [Saint
Jacob he takes our blest Lord by the hand]
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| The
Renegade. [Now pay ye the heed that is
fitting]
Previously printed, with some small differences of text, in
The Talisman, 1835, pp. 13–14.
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| An Impromptu. [And
darest thou thyself compare]
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| A Hymn. [O Jesus,
Thou Fountain of solace and gladness]
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| The Transformed Damsel.
[My father up of the country rode]
This Ballad should be compared with The Cruel
Step-dame, printed in The Serpent Knight and Other
Ballade, 1913, pp. 30–33. Also with The
Transformed Damsel, printed in The Return of the Dead and
Other Ballads, 1913, pp. 13–14. The actions
described in the earlier stanzas follow closely those of the
opening stanzas of The Cruel Step-dame; whilst the
incident of the lover cutting a piece of flesh from his own
breast to serve as bait to attract his mistress, who, in the form
of a bird, is perched upon a branch of the tree above him, is
common to both the Transformed Damsel ballads.
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