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The Text is taken almost entirely from a copy which was sent in 1780 to Bishop Percy by a Miss Fisher of Carlisle; in the last half of the first stanza her version gives, unintelligibly:
...

All alone in the field
Stands John S. Crow;
And a curious sight is he,
With his head of tow,
And a hat pulled low
On a face that you never see.

His clothes are ragged
And horrid and old,...

CHAPTER I

I cannot blame old Israel yet,
For I am not a sage,
I shall not know until I get
The son of my old age.
The mysteries of this Vale of Tears
We will perchance explain...

Jubal sang of the Wrath of God
And the curse of thistle and thorn,
But Tubal got him a pointed rod,
And scrabbled the earth for corn.
Old, old as that early mould,
Young as the sprouting grain,...

I rode one evening with Count Maddalo
Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow
Of Adria towards Venice: a bare strand
Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,...

Put on thy holy filletings, and so
To th' temple with the sober midwife go.
Attended thus, in a most solemn wise,
By those who serve the child-bed mysteries,...

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
...

"Tie stille, barn min!
Imorgen kommer Fin,
Fa'er din,
Og gi'er dich Esbern Snares 'ine og hjerte at lege med!"
- Zealand Rhyme.


"Build at Kallundborg by the sea...

See how a single rich man gives a living to numbers of beggars!
'Tis when sovereigns build, carters are kept in employ.

[CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863]

I

The sun had set;
The leaves with dew were wet:
Down fell a bloody dusk
On the woods, that second of May,
Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey,...

Kelly the Ranger half opened an eye
To wink at the Army passing by,
While his hot breath, thick with the taint of beer,
Came forth from his lips in a drunken jeer.
Brown and bearded and long of limb...

Long loving, all our love was husbanded
Until one morning on the brown hillside,
One misty Autumn morn when Sun did hide
His radiance, yet was felt. No words we said,...

When the shadows are hungry
animals on walls
and theatre goers are
parliamentarians engaged
in a repast or feast
of words.
the lone house stands
as a stone shard or sliver...

(Translated From The Gaelic. Taken down in Gaelic by Dewar.)

King Arthur on a journey went,
His men and he on hunting bent.

Came to the hill for victories known;
He, and Sir Balva, armed alone....

[Written while a field-worker in the Anti-Saloon League of Illinois.]


King Arthur's men have come again.
They challenge everywhere
The foes of Christ's Eternal Church.
Her incense crowns the air....

IN life oft ills from self-imprudence spring;
As proof, Candaules' story we will bring;
In folly's scenes the king was truly great:
His vassal, Gyges, had from him a bait,...

("Un jour, Kanut mourut.")

[Bk. X. i.]


King Canute died.[1] Encoffined he was laid.
Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say,
And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and held...

King Christian stood by the lofty mast
In mist and smoke;
His sword was hammering so fast,
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed;
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast,
In mist and smoke....

King Cole he reigned in Aureoland,
But the sceptre was seldom in his hand

Far oftener was there his golden cup--
He ate too much, but he drank all up!

To be called a king and to be a king,...

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
Ev'ry fiddler had a fiddle,...