The actual song, though overloaded with alliteration, has a good movement. A stanza may be quoted:—
I know a maid in bower so bright
That handsome is for any sight,
Noble, gracious maid of might,
Precious to discover.
In all this wealth of women fair,
Maid of beauty to compare
With my sweeting found I ne'er
All the country over!
Old too is the lullaby used as a burden or refrain for a religious poem printed by Thomas Wright in his 'Songs and Carols':—
Lullay, myn lykyng, my dere sone, myn swetyng,
Lullay, my dere herte, myn owyn dere derlyng.[24]
The same English manuscript which has kept the refrain 'Blow, Northern Wind,' offers another song which may be given in modern translation and entire. All these songs were written down about the year 1310, and probably in Herefordshire. As with the carmina burana, the lays of German "clerks," so these English lays represent something between actual communal verse and the poetry of the individual artist; they owe more to folk-song than to the traditions of literature and art. Some of the expressions in this song are taken, if we may trust the critical insight of Ten Brink, directly from the poetry of the people.
A maid as white as ivory bone,
A pearl in gold that golden shone,
A turtle-dove, a love whereon
My heart must cling:
Her blitheness nevermore be gone
While I can sing!
When she is gay,
In all the world no more I pray
Than this: alone with her to stay
Withouten strife.
Could she but know the ills that slay
Her lover's life!
Was never woman nobler wrought;
And when she blithe to sleep is brought,
Well for him who guessed her thought,
Proud maid! Yet O,
Full well I know she will me nought.
My heart is woe.
And how shall I then sweetly sing
That thus am marréd with mourning?
To death, alas, she will me bring
Long ere my day.
Greet her well, the sweetë thing,
With eyen gray!