Works

The Text is taken from Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802), vol. i. pp. 72-79, omitting the tedious Part I. Another of many versions may be found in Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xiii. p...

There's a little fairy who
Peeps from every drop of dew:
You can see him wink and shine
On the morning-glory vine,
Mischief in his eye of blue.
There's another fairy that...

VII.

Fairies.


Glory endures when calumny hath fled;
And fairies show themselves, in friendly guise,
To all who hold a trust beyond the dead,
And all who pray, albeit so worldly-wise,...

On the tremulous coppice,
From her plenteous hair,
Large golden-rayed poppies
Of moon-litten air
The Night hath flung there.

In the fern-favored hollow
The fire-flies fleet...

Translation of a Latin poem by Thomas Randolph

We the fairies blithe and antic
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.
...

O Saw ye not fair Ines?
She's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest:
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,...

The Text.--Of seven or eight variants of this ballad, only three preserve the full form of the story. On the whole, the one here given--from Sharp's Ballad Book, as sung by an old woman in Perthshire--is the best, as the other ...

Tune - "Saw ye my father?"



I.

Where are the joys I have met in the morning,
That danc'd to the lark's early song?
Where is the peace that awaited my wand'ring,...

Ov whooalsum food aw get mi fill, -
Ov drink aw seldom want a gill;
Aw've clooas to shield me free throo harm,
Should winds be cold or th' sun be warm.

Aw rarely have a sickly spell, -...

The Text is from a broadside in the Douce Ballads, with a few unimportant corrections from other stall-copies, as printed by Percy and Ritson.
...

As it fell out on a long summer's day,
Two lovers they sat on a hill;
They sat together that long summer's day,
And could not talk their fill.

"I see no harm by you, Margaret,...

The Text is from Lovely Jenny's Garland, as given with emendations by Professor Child. There is also a curiously perverted version in Herd's manuscript, in which the verses require rearrangement before becoming intelligible....

By the Watertown Horse-Car Conductor


It was a millinger most gay,
As sat within her shop;
A student came along that way,
And in he straight did pop.
Clean shaven he, of massive mould,...

Fair Prime of life! were it enough to gild
With ready sunbeams every straggling shower;
And, if an unexpected cloud should lower,
Swiftly thereon a rainbow arch to build...

When as King Henry rulde this land,
The second of that name,
Besides the queene, he dearly lovde
A faire and comely dame.

Most peerlesse was her beautye founde,
Her favour, and her face;...

Smooth was the sea, and seem'd to call
Two pretty girls to play withal:
Who paddling there, the sea soon frown'd,
And on a sudden both were drown'd.
What credit can we give to seas,...

Fair Susan did her wif-hede well menteine,
Algates assaulted sore by letchours tweine;
Now, and I read aright that auncient song,
Olde were the paramours, the dame full yong.
...

Dim vales- and shadowy floods,
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over!
Huge moons there wax and wane,
Again, again, again,...

'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light
The elves upon their midnight way;
That fairy toil and elfin play
Receive their beams of magic white.

I marvel not if it be true;...

There was a morrice on the moonlight plain,
And music echoed in the woody glade,
For fay-like forms, as of Titania's train,
Upon a summer eve, beneath the shade
Of Netley's ivied ruins, to the sound...