Signelil, A Tale from the Cornish, and Other Ballads

“He sitteth highest at the board,
My children tremble at his word.
So wide thereof the story goes.

“To them he gives so little bread,
And mocks them now that I am dead.
So wide thereof the story goes.

“He rides about the forest grounds,
And hunts the red deer with my hounds.
So wide thereof the story goes.

“Each time the caitiff slays a deer,
He wakes me in my grave so drear.
So wide thereof the story goes.

“But if I to him once repair,
With him ’twill sorely, sorely fare.”
So wide thereof the story goes.

FROM GOUDELI

Yestere’en when the bat, and the owl, and his mate,
Were holding discourse their small matters about;
And the sun, that the wee little stars might shine out,
Had extinguished the lamp of his lustre so great.

A shepherd exclaimed: “O ’twas folly that I
My love should bestow upon one never kind,
Upon Siris the lovely, whose cold, cruel mind,
Would suffer unmoved a true lover to die.

“Often times, when our flocks on the common did browse,
I’d approach her to pour in her ear my fond vows,
But unto her companions to haste she was sure.
O, light of my eyes! wouldst thou render me blest,
And wouldst grant me two kisses on thy snowy breast,
I swear that each one should an hour endure!”

PEASANT SONGS OF SPAIN

1

When Jesu our Redeemer
To him the twelve did call,
By threes and fours he called them,
Till they were mustered all.

And when they all were mustered,
’Twas thus to them he spake:
“O which of ye, my children,
Will perish for my sake?”

Then, gazing on each other,
They stood abashed and still;
All save Saint John the Baptist,
And Peter of the Hill.

“We’ll die for thee, O Jesus,
Upon to-morrow’s morn.”
For him died John the Baptist,
And suffered pain and scorn.

2

There stands a stone, a rounded stone,
’Midst ocean’s surges hoary,
On which sweet Jesus set his foot
When mounting to his glory.

There grows a rose, a blooming rose,
’Midst ocean’s briny waters,
That o’er may pass, to hear the mass,
Havanah’s dusky daughters.

*****

notes

1

An earlier, and utterly different, version of this ballad was printed in Romantic Ballads, 1826, pp. 37–39. Borrow afterwards described this earlier version as “a paraphrase.”