"My Mother said that I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood,
The wood was dark; the grass was green;
In came Sally with a tambourine.
I went to the sea—no ship to get across;
I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse;
I up on his back and was off in a crack,
Sally, tell my Mother I shall never come back."
[86].
This lament for matchless Robin Hood, who should shine in a far better place than between "Beggars" and "Gilderoy," is the only rhyme about him in this collection. The fact is, try as I might, I could not make up my mind which I liked best of his old greenwood ballads in Mr. Nahum's book. The oldest and best were all in formidable spelling, the most of them were long, and maybe I was at last a little lazy. They are all to be found in Professor Child. And if leaving out the merry outlaw will persuade anyone to get and read English and Scottish Ballads, I shall have omitted him to good purpose.