Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1855-02-24
Turns her face unto the wall,
And there hor heart it breaks.

| And there hor heart it breaks.
| A modern poet would have hardly thrown
away the opportunity offered him of describing
the chamber and its furniture; he would put
painted window into it-for the inkstand will
supply them quite as cheaply as plain glass
| He would tell you all about the tapestry which
the eyes of the dying maiden in her extreme
agony would have been very likely of course to
have been minutely interested in. He would
| have given a clinical lecture on the symptoms,
and a post-mortem examination. 1t was so
lucky for those old baladmongers that they had
not any ideas
| And when they give dying speech they do
not make their heroes take leave of the uni
verse in general as if that were going into
mourning for death more or less. When Earl
Douglas is in his death-thraw, he says to his
nephew
| My wound is deep; fan would sleep;
| Take thou the vanguard of the three,
! And hide me by the blakcnbush
| That grows ON yonder lily lee:
| o bury me by the brakenbush
| Beneath the blooming brere,
| Let never living mortal ken
| That kindly scot lies here!
The ballads are the only true-folk songs that
we have in English. There is no other poetry
in the language that addresses us so simply as
mere men and women Learning has tamper-
ed with modern poetry, and the Muse, like Por-
tia wears Doctors cap and gown.
The force and earnestness Of sty vie that mark
| the old ballad become very striking when con-
trasted with later attempts in the same way
1t is not fatness and insipidity that they are
| remarkable for but for bare rocky grandeur
| in whose creyices tenderness nestles its chance
tufts Of ferns or harebells One of these sincere
old verses imbedded in the insipidities of mo-
dern imitation looks out stern and colossal as
that charcoal head, which Michael Angelo drew
on the wall of the Farnesina, glowers through
| the paline frescocs.
Mr.. Lowell here read number of passages
from the old ballad entitled /" "Margarct's Ghost"
and compared them with few stanzas from an
81 improved version of the same by MalIet-
| He also read from the ballad of Helen of Kir-
conne and from others
OF the tenderness of the ballads must give
an instance or two before | leave them.
! In the old ballad of Clerk Saunders, Mar
garet follows the ghost Of her lover to his
grave
So painfully she climbed the wall
She climbed the wall up after him,
Hose nor shoOn upon her feet,
She had no time to put them on.
| o bonny bonny sang the bird
| Sat on a coil o. hay
| But mournfu', mournfu' the maid
| That followed the corpse o clay
Is there any at your head, Saunders?
Or any at your feet?
| Is there any room at your sde Saunders?
| For fan, fain, would sleep.
| She's sat her down upon the grave
And mOuned sac lang and sar
That the clochs and wanton flies at last
Came and built in her yellow hair.
In further illustration, Mr.. Lowell read
from I" the Clerks Two Sons of OXenford =
He concluded his lecture thus.
| | think that the makers of the old ballads
did stand face to face with life in way that
is getting more and more impossible for us
Day by day the art of printing isolates us more
and more from our fellows, and from the healthy
and inspiring touch of our fellows. We learn
continually more and more of mankind and less
of man. We know more of Europe than of our
own village. We feel humanity from afar.-
But | must not forget that the ballads have
passed through a seive which no modern author
has the advantage Of. Only those have come
down to us which imprinted themselves on the
general heart The new editions were struck
off by mothers grooming their children to sleep,
or by wandering minstrcls who went about SOW
ing the seeds of courtesy and valor in the cot
tage on the hill side Print, which like the
amber preserves all an authors grubs, gives
men the chance to try him by the average IA
ther than the best of his yield. Moreover the
Review of the ballad singer was i'll the faces of
his ring of hearers, in whose glow or chill he
could read at a glance criticism from
which there was no appeal 1t was not Smith
or Brown, but the halnan heart that Judged
, him.
Doubtless another advantage Of these old
poets was their out of door life They went
| from audience to audience on foot, and had nc
more cramped study than the arch of Hea
, ven, no library but Clouds streams, mountains
woods and men, There is something more il
sunshine than mere light and heat | fancy
: that kind of favor we detect in the old bal
lads is due to it, and that it may give color ano
/ bloom to the brain as well as to the apple anG
| plum Indoor inspiration is like the stove-heat
Of the forciDg-house and the fruits ripened by
: it are pale, dropscal and wanting in tang
There may be alsoa virtue in the fireside, which
gives to the portheru wind domestic and fami
e y warmth, and makes it skilled to teach tn,
t ethics Of home, But il is not to the chimne,
+ corner that we can trace the spiritual dynastie
1 that have swayed mankind These have sun
: shine in their veins
+ Perhaps another charm Of the ballads is tha
d nobody made them. They seem to have com
t up like violets, and VIC have only to thank Got