The world he hath still compast round
And seene those nations strange,
That hearing of the name of Christ, 75
Their idol gods doe change:
To whom he hath told wondrous thinges
Of time forepast and gone,
And to the princes of the worlde
Declares his cause of moane: 80
Desiring still to be dissolv'd,
And yeild his mortal breath;
But, if the Lord hath thus decreed,
He shall not yet see death.
For neither lookes he old nor young, 85
But as he did those times,
When Christ did suffer on the crosse
For mortall sinners crimes.
He hath past through many a foreigne place,
Arabia, Egypt, Africa, 90
Grecia, Syria, and great Thrace,
And throughout all Hungaria:
Where Paul and Peter preached Christ,
Those blest apostles deare,
There he hath told our Saviours wordes, 95
In countries far and neare.
And lately in Bohemia,
With many a German towne,
And now in Flanders, as 'tis thought,
He wandreth up and downe: 100
Where learned men with him conferre
Of those his lingering dayes,
And wonder much to heare him tell
His journeyes and his wayes.
If people give this Jew an almes, 105
The most that he will take
Is not above a groat a time:
Which he, for Jesus' sake,
Will kindlye give unto the poore,
And thereof make no spare, 110
Affirming still that Jesus Christ
Of him hath dailye care.
He ne'er was seene to laugh nor smile,
But weepe and make great moane;
Lamenting still his miseries, 115
And dayes forepast and gone.
If he heare any one blaspheme,
Or take God's name in vaine,
He telles them that they crucifie
Their Saviour Christe againe. 120
"If you had seene his death," saith he,
"As these mine eyes have done,
Ten thousand thousand times would yee
His torments think upon,
And suffer for his sake all paine 125
Of torments, and all woes:"
These are his wordes, and eke his life,
Whereas he comes or goes.
[PROUD LADY MARGARET.]
From Minstrelsy of the Scotish Border, iii. 32. This copy of the ballad is imperfect. A complete version is [inserted in the Appendix] from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland, i. 91. There is another, also defective, called The Bonny Hind Squire, in Scottish Traditional Versions of Ancient Ballads, p. 42, Percy Soc. vol. xvii.