The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories

A garden faire, and in the corners set

An arbour green with wandis long and small

Railed about, and so with leaves beset

Was all the place and hawthorn hedges knet,

That lyf

was none, walkyng there forbye,

That might within scarce any wight espye.

So thick the branches and the leves grene,

Beshaded all the alleys that there were,

And midst of every arbour might be seen,

The sharpe, grene, swete juniper,

Growing so fair with branches here and there,

That as it seemed to a lyf without,

The boughs did spread the arbour all about.

And on the small grene twistis

set

The lytel swete nightingales, and sung

So loud and clear, the hymnis consecrate

Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among,

That all the garden and the wallis rung

Right of their song—

NOTE—The language of the quotations is generally modernized.

It was the month of May, when every thing was in bloom, and he interprets the song of the nightingale into the language of his enamoured feeling:

Worship, all ye that lovers be, this May;

For of your bliss the kalends are begun,

And sing with us, Away, winter, away.

Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun.

As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes of the birds, he gradually relapses into one of those tender and undefinable reveries, which fill the youthful bosom in this delicious season. He wonders what this love may be of which he has so often read, and which thus seems breathed forth in the quickening breath of May, and melting all nature into ecstasy and song. If it really be so great a felicity, and if it be a boon thus generally dispensed to the most insignificant beings, why is he alone cut off from its enjoyments?

Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be,

That love is of such noble myght and kynde?

Loving his folke, and such prosperitee,

Is it of him, as we in books do find;

May he oure hertes setten

and unbynd:

Hath he upon oure hertes such maistrye?

Or is all this but feynit fantasye?

For giff he be of so grete excellence

That he of every wight hath care and charge,

What have I gilt

to him, or done offense,

That I am thral’d, and birdis go at large?

In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eye downward, he beholds “the fairest and the freshest young floure” that ever he had seen. It is the lovely Lady Jane, walking in the garden to enjoy the beauty of that “fresh May morrowe.” Breaking thus suddenly upon his sight in a moment of loneliness and excited susceptibility, she at once captivates the fancy of the romantic prince, and becomes the object of his wandering wishes, the sovereign of his ideal world.

There is, in this charming scene, an evident resemblance to the early part of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale, where Palamon and Arcite fall in love with Emilia, whom they see walking in the garden of their prison. Perhaps the similarity of the actual fact to the incident which he had read in Chaucer may have induced James to dwell on it in his poem. His description of the Lady Jane is given in the picturesque and minute manner of his master, and, being doubtless taken from the life, is a perfect portrait of a beauty of that day. He dwells with the fondness of a lover on every article of her apparel, from the net of pearl, splendent with emeralds and sapphires, that confined her golden hair, even to the “goodly chaine of small orfeverye”

about her neck, whereby there hung a ruby in shape of a heart, that seemed, he says, like a spark of fire burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of white tissue was looped up to enable her to walk with more freedom. She was accompanied by two female attendants, and about her sported a little hound decorated with bells, probably the small Italian hound of exquisite symmetry which was a parlor favorite and pet among the fashionable dames of ancient times. James closes his description by a burst of general eulogium:

In her was youth, beauty, with humble port,

Bounty, richesse, and womanly feature:

God better knows than my pen can report,

Wisdom, largesse,

estate,

and cunning