(Fought September 9th, 1513.)
This version is made up from various copies of this old ballad collated, and is of very unequal merit. The stanzas, from the 17th to the 22d inclusive, compose a dirge of the most beautiful and pathetic simplicity. The circumstances are happily chosen and combined; and the language, to those who understand it, is so picturesquely expressive, that while we read the words, the scene is felt penciled on our imagination. And it is impossible to peruse it without feeling a high degree of that pleasing sombre tenderness, which it is the object of this sort of poetry to produce.
From Spey to the border,
Was peace and good order;
The sway of our monarch was mild as the May;
Peace he adored,
Whilk Soudrons abhorred,
Our marches they plunder, our wardens they slay.
’Gainst Louis, our ally,
Their Henry did sally,