English Verse

BALLADS AND ROMANCES

The songs to savage virtue dear
That won of yore the public ear,

Ere Polity, sedate and sage,

Had quench'd the fires of feudal rage.

These venerable ancient Song-Enditers

Soar'd many a pitch above our modern writers:
With rough majestic force they moved the heart,
And Strength and Nature made amends for Art.

WARTON.

ROWE.

Yet fragments of the lofty strain
Float down the tide of years,
As buoyant on the stormy main
A parted wreck appears.

Introduction to Jamieson's
Northern Antiquities.

Ballads and Romances.

TRADITIONAL BALLADS.

THOMAS THE RHYMER.

True Thomas lay on Huntly bank,-
A ferlie he spied wi' his ee:

And there he saw a Lady bright

Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.

Her shirt was o' the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o' the velvet fine;
At ilka tett of her horse's mane
Hung fifty silver bells and nine.

True Thomas he pull'd aff his cap,
And louted low down to his knee :
“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth I never did see."

"O no, O no, Thomas!" she said:

"That name does not belang to me, I am but the Queen of fair Elf-land

That am hither come to visit thee.

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