Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age Part 29

"_Abraham._ Sister Gillian,--I have the rarest news for you.

_Gillian._ For me? 'tis well. And what news have you got, sir?

_Abr._ Skipping news, lipping news, tripping news.

_Gil._ How! dancing, brother Abram, dancing?

_Abr._ Prancing, advancing, dancing. Nay, 'tis a match, a match upon a wager.

_Gil._ A match. Who be they?

_Abr._ Why all the wenches of _our town_ Edmonton, and all the mad wenches of Waltham.

_Gil._ A match, and leave me out! When, when is't, brother?

_Abr._ Marry, e'en this morning:--they are now going to't helter-skelter. [_A treble plays within_.

_Gil._ And leave me out! where, brother, where?

_Abr._ Why there, Sister Gillian; there, at our own door almost,--on the green there, close by the may-pole. Hark! you may hear them hither." (Sig. D.)

The stage-direction at the entrance of the dancers runs thus:--"Enter six country wenches, all red petticoats, white st.i.tch'd bodies, in their smock-sleeves, the fiddler before them, and Gillian with her tippet up in the midst of them dancing."

_Page_ 73. "It was the purest light of heaven" &c.--I am reminded of a fine pa.s.sage in Drayton's "Barons' Wars," canto VI.:--

"Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire, The gentle queen did much bewail his fall; But Mortimer commended his desire To lose one poor life or to govern all.

'What though,' quoth he, 'he madly did aspire And his great mind made him proud Fortune's thrall?

Yet, in despight when she her worst had done, _He perish'd in the chariot of the sun_.'"

_Page_ 74. "The Bellman's Song."--In "Robin Goodfellow; his mad pranks and merry jests," 1628, we have another specimen of a Bellman's Song:--

"Sometimes would he go like a bellman in the night, and with many pretty verses delight the ears of those that waked at his bell-ringing: his verses were these:--

Maids in your smocks, Look well to your locks, And your tinder-box, Your wheels and your rocks, Your hens and your c.o.c.ks, Your cows and your ox, And beware of the fox.

When the bellman knocks Put out your fire and candle-light, So they shall not you affright.

May you dream of your delights, In your sleeps see pleasing sights!

Good rest to all, both old and young: The bellman now hath done his song.

Then would he go laughing _Ho ho ho!_ as his use was."

_Page_ 77. "That kisses were the _seals of love_."--Every reader will recall

"But my kisses bring again, bring again.

_Seals of love_ but sealed in vain, sealed in vain."

(The first stanza is found among the poems of Sir Philip Sidney.)

_Page_ 80. "My prime of youth."--This song is also set to music in Richard Alison's "Hour's Recreation," 1606, and Michael Este's "Madrigals of three, four, and five parts," 1604. It is printed in "Reliquiae: Wottonianae" as "By Chid.i.c.k Tychborn, being young and then in the tower, the night before his execution." Chidiock Tychbourne of Southampton was executed with Ballard and Babington in 1586.

_Page_ 80. "My sweetest Lesbia."--The first stanza is an elegant paraphrase from Catullus, though the last line fails to render the rhythmical sweetness long-drawn-out of "Nox est perpetua una dormienda."

_Page_ 81. "My Thoughts are winged with Hopes."--This piece is also found in "England's Helicon." A MS. copy, in a commonplace book found at Hamburg, is signed "W. S." I have frequently met with these initials in volumes of MS. poetry of the early part of the seventeenth century. The following pretty verses in Add. MS. 21, 433, fol. 158, are subscribed "W. S.":--

"O when will Cupid show such art To strike two lovers with one dart?

I'm ice to him or he to me; Two hearts alike there seldom be.

If ten thousand meet together, Scarce one face is like another: If scarce two faces can agree, Two hearts alike there seldom be."

There is not the slightest ground for identifying "W. S." with Shakespeare. Mr. Linton ("Rare Poems," p. 255) conjectures that "My Thoughts are winged with Hopes"--which has the heading "To Cynthia" in "England's Helicon"--may be by Raleigh.

_Page_ 83. "Now each creature."--The first stanza of "An Ode" by Samuel Daniel, originally printed in the 1592 edition of "Delia."

"Now G.o.d be with old Simeon."--Here is another round from "Pammelia":--

"Come drink to me, And I to thee.

And then shall we Full well agree.

I've loved the jolly tankard, Full seven winters and more; I loved it so long That I went upon the score.

Who loveth not the tankard, He is no honest man; And he is no right soldier, That loveth not the can.

Tap the cannikin, troll the cannikin, Toss the cannikin, turn the cannikin!

Hold now, good son, and fill us a fresh can, That we may quaff it round from man to man."

Good honest verse, but ill-suited to these degenerate, tea-drinking days.

_Page_ 85. "Now I see thy looks were feigned."--First printed in "The Ph[oe]nix Nest," 1593, subscribed "T. L. Gent," _i.e._ Thomas Lodge, one of the most brilliant of Elizabethan lyrists.

_Page_ 87. "Shall we play barley-break."--The fullest description of the rustic game of barley-break is to be found in the first book of Sidney's "Arcadia."

_Page_ 87. "Now let her change." This song is also set to Music in Robert Jones' "Ultimum Vale" (1608).

_Page_ 89. "Now what is love" &c.--This poem originally appeared in "The Ph[oe]nix Nest," 1593; it is also printed (in form of a dialogue) in "England's Helicon," 1600, and Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602. It is ascribed to Raleigh in a MS. list of Davison's. See Canon Hannah's edition of Raleigh's poems.

_Page_ 93. "Oft have I mused."--This poem was printed in Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody," 1602.

_Page_ 96. "Our country-swains in the morris-dance."--In Morley's "Madrigals to Four Voices," 1594, there is a lively description of the morris-dance:--

"Ho! who comes here with bag-piping and drumming?

O, 'tis I see the morris-dance a coming.

Come, ladies, out, O come, come quickly, And see about how trim they dance and trickly: Hey! there again: hark! how the bells they shake it!

Now _for our town_! once there, now for our town and take it: Soft awhile, not away so fast, they melt them!

Piper be hang'd, knave! look, the dancers swelt them.

Out, there, stand out!--you come too far (I say) in-- There give the hobby-horse more room to play in!"

"I woo with tears and _ne'er the near_."--_Ne'er the near_ (a proverbial expression) = Never the nigher.

_Page_ 107. "When they came home Sis _floted_ cream."--I suppose the meaning is that Sis skimmed the cream from the milk. Halliwell (_Arch.