Friendship

Io son già stanco di pensar siccome.

HE WONDERS AT HIS LONG ENDURANCE OF SUCH TOIL AND SUFFERING.


    I weary me alway with questions keen
How, why my thoughts ne'er turn from you away,
Wherefore in life they still prefer to stay,
When they might flee this sad and painful scene,
And how of the fine hair, the lovely mien,
Of the bright eyes which all my feelings sway,
Calling on your dear name by night and day,
My tongue ne'er silent in their praise has been,
And how my feet not tender are, nor tired,
Pursuing still with many a useless pace
Of your fair footsteps the elastic trace;
And whence the ink, the paper whence acquired,
Fill'd with your memories: if in this I err,
Not art's defect but Love's own fault it were.

MACGREGOR.

The Text is taken from Buchan's MSS., the Scots version being rather more condensed than the corresponding English broadside. There is a reference to this ballad in Munday's Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntington (1598); but earlier still, Skelton hints at it in Colyn Cloute.


The Story can be paralleled in French, Danish, and Persian ballads and tales, but is simple enough to have been invented by almost any people. Compare also the story of The Wright's Chaste Wife by Adam of Cobsam, E.E.T.S., 1865, ed. F. J. Furnivall.


THE FRIAR IN THE WELL

    1.
    O hearken and hear, and I will you tell
                Sing, Faldidae, faldidadi
    Of a friar that loved a fair maiden well.
                Sing, Faldi dadi di di        (bis)

Could I command rough rhimes and hoarse, to suit
That hole of sorrow, o'er which ev'ry rock
His firm abutment rears, then might the vein
Of fancy rise full springing: but not mine
Such measures, and with falt'ring awe I touch
The mighty theme; for to describe the depth
Of all the universe, is no emprize
To jest with, and demands a tongue not us'd
To infant babbling. But let them assist
My song, the tuneful maidens, by whose aid
Amphion wall'd in Thebes, so with the truth
My speech shall best accord. Oh ill-starr'd folk,
Beyond all others wretched! who abide
In such a mansion, as scarce thought finds words
To speak of, better had ye here on earth
Been flocks or mountain goats. As down we stood
In the dark pit beneath the giants' feet,
But lower far than th...

Now thou art dead, no eye shall ever see,
For shape and service, spaniel like to thee.
This shall my love do, give thy sad death one
Tear, that deserves of me a million.

She was half Lady and half cat--
What is so wonderful in that?
Half of our lady friends (so say
The other half) are Cats to-day.
In Egypt she made quite a stir,
They carved huge Images of her.
Riddles she asked of all she met
And all who answered wrong, she ate.
When Oedipus her riddle solved
The minx--I mean the Sphinx--dissolved
In tears. What is there, when one thinks,
So wonderful about the Sphinx?

To make this condiment, your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen-sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half-suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
And, lastly, o'er the flavored compound toss
A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce.
Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat!
'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat;
Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate can not harm me, I have dined to-day!

O kisse, which dost those ruddie gemmes impart,
Or gemmes or fruits of new-found Paradise,
Breathing all blisse, and sweetning to the heart,
Teaching dumbe lips a nobler exercise;
O kisse, which soules, euen soules, together ties
By linkes of loue and only Natures art,
How faine would I paint thee to all mens eyes.
Or of thy gifts at least shade out some part!
But she forbids; with blushing words she sayes
She builds her fame on higher-seated praise.
But my heart burnes; I cannot silent be.
Then, since, dear life, you faine would haue me peace,
And I, mad with delight, want wit to cease,
Stop you my mouth with still still kissing me.

1.

Oh! my lonely - lonely - lonely - Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far - far away! and alone along the billow?

2.

Oh! my lonely - lonely - lonely - Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!

3.

Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.

4.

Then if thou wilt - no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy - but to behold him!
Oh! m...

Us-folks is purty pore - but Ma
She's waitin' - two years more - tel Pa
He serve his term out. Our Pa he -
He's in the Penitenchurrie!

Now don't you never tell! - 'cause Sis,
The baby, she don't know he is. -
'Cause she wuz only four, you know,
He kissed her last an' hat to go!

Pa alluz liked Sis best of all
Us childern. - 'Spect it's 'cause she fall
"When she'uz ist a child, one day -
An' make her back look thataway.

Pa - 'fore he be a burglar - he's
A locksmiff, an' maked locks, an' keys,
An' knobs you pull fer bells to ring,
An' he could ist make anything! -

'Cause our Ma say he can! - An' this
Here little pair o' crutches Sis
Skips round on - Pa maked them - ye...

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out in the porch's sagging floor,
leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.

That wrinkle, when first I espied it,
    At once put my heart out of pain;
Till the eye, that was glowing beside it,
    Disturbed my ideas again.

Thou art just in the twilight at present,
    When woman's declension begins;
When, fading from all that is pleasant,
    She bids a good night to her sins.

Yet thou still art so lovely to me,
    I would sooner, my exquisite mother!
Repose in the sunset of thee,
    Than bask in the noon of another.

Strike the chords softly with tremulous fingers,
    While, on the threshold of happiest years,
For a brief moment fond memory lingers,
    Ere we go forth to life's conflicts and fears!

Strike the chords softly! - yet no, as we tarry,
    Swiftly the morning is gliding away;
Weary ones droop 'neath the burdens they carry,
    Toiling ones faint in the heat of the day.

Let us not linger! - Earth's millions are crying
    "Come to us, aid us, we grope in the night!
Come to us, aid us, we're perishing, dying -
    Give us, oh, give us, the heavenly Light!"

Let us not linger! - our brethren are calling, -
    "Aid us, the harvest increases each day; -
Some have grown weary, alas, of their toiling! -
    Others have passed from their labors away."

0h, late withdrawn from human-kind
And following dreams we never knew!
Varus, what dream has Fate assigned
To trouble you?

Such virtue as commends of law
Of Virtue to the vulgar horde
Suffices not. You needs must draw
A righteous sword;

And, flagrant in well-doing, smite
The priests of Bacchus at their fane,
Lest any worshipper invite
The God again.

Whence public strife and naked crime
And-deadlier than the cup you shun,
A people schooled to mock, in time,
All law--not one.

Cease, then, to fashion State-made sin,
Nor give thy children cause to doubt
That Virtue springs from Iron within,
Not lead without.

[NOTE. - The following imitation of Cowper's Boadicea was written in 1858; most of its predictions have since been fulfilled.]

    When the Cambridge flower-show ended,
        And the flowers and guests were gone,
    And the evening shades descended,
        Roamed a man forlorn alone.

    Sage beside the River slow
        Sat the Don renowned for lore
    And in accents soft and low
        To the elms his love did pour.

    "Julia, if my learned eyes
        Gaze upon thy matchless face:
    'Tis because I feel there lies
        Magic in thy lovely grace.

    "I will marry! write that threat
        In the ink I daily waste:
    Marry - pay each College debt -
        College Ale no more will taste.

    "Granta, ...

Before my sight appear'd, with open wings,
The beauteous image, in fruition sweet
Gladdening the thronged spirits. Each did seem
A little ruby, whereon so intense
The sun-beam glow'd that to mine eyes it came
In clear refraction. And that, which next
Befalls me to portray, voice hath not utter'd,
Nor hath ink written, nor in fantasy
Was e'er conceiv'd. For I beheld and heard
The beak discourse; and, what intention form'd
Of many, singly as of one express,
Beginning: "For that I was just and piteous,
l am exalted to this height of glory,
The which no wish exceeds: and there on earth
Have I my memory left, e'en by the bad
Commended, while they leave its course untrod."

Thus is one heat from many embers felt,
As in that image many were the loves,
...

The murmur of a bee
A witchcraft yieldeth me.
If any ask me why,
'T were easier to die
Than tell.

The red upon the hill
Taketh away my will;
If anybody sneer,
Take care, for God is here,
That's all.

The breaking of the day
Addeth to my degree;
If any ask me how,
Artist, who drew me so,
Must tell!

        A flight of doves, with wanton wings,
            Flash white against the sky.
        In the leafy copse an oriole sings,
            And a robin sings hard by.
        Sun and shadow are out on the hills;
        The swallow has followed the daffodils;
        In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills
            Through the wild, warm heart of May.

        To have seen the sun come back, to have seen
            Children again at play,
        To have heard the thrush where the woods are green
            Welcome the new-born day,
        To have felt the soft grass cool to the feet,
        To have smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet,
        To have shared the laughter along the street,
            And, then, to have died in May!

  ...

I.

    O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
    O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:
    Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,
    O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.
    But warily tent, when you come to court me,
    And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee;
    Syne up the back-stile and let naebody see,
    And come as ye were na comin' to me.
    And come as ye were na comin' to me.

II.

    At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me,
    Gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a flie;
    But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e,
    Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.
    Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.

III.

    Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me,
    And whiles ye may lightly ...