English Songs and Ballads

FAIR stood the wind for France When we our sails advance, Nor now to prove our chance Longer will tarry; But putting to the main, At Kaux, the mouth of Seine, With all his marti...

'THIS Hermit good lives in that wood Which slopes down to the sea. How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He loves to talk of marineres That come from a far countree.

In the stormy east-wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complaining, Heavily the low sky raining Over tower'd Camelot; Down she came...

Of a blind beggar's daughter most bright, That late was betrothed unto a young knight; All the discourse thereof you did see: But now comes the wedding of pretty Bessee.

Away then hied the heir of Linne O'er hill and holt and moor and fen, Untill he came to the lonesome lodge, That stud so lowe in a lonely glenne.

IT was a blind beggar, had long lost his sight, He had a fair daughter of beauty most bright; And many a gallant brave suitor had she, For none was so comely as pretty Bessee.

'OH sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, That slid into my soul.

Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close...

'HERE passed a weary time. Each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye. A weary time! a weary time! How glazed each weary eye! When looking westward I beheld A something in the...

To ride, to run, to rant, to roar, To alwaye spend and never spare, I wot, an' it were the king himself, Of gold and fee he mote be bare.

With sloping masts and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow Still treads the shadow of his foe And forward bends his head, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,...

I closed my lids, and kept them close, And the balls like pulses beat; For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky, Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my...

And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe; For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. "Ah wretch," said they, "the bird to slay, That m...

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. A red-cross...

There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse...

ON either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And thro' the field the road runs by To many-tower'd Camelot; And up and do...