From a Cornish Window Part 30

That the fresh bloom of the carol was evanescent and all too easily destroyed I always knew; but never realised its extreme fugacity until, some five years ago, it fell to me to prepare an anthology, which, under the t.i.tle of _The Oxford Book of English Verse_, has since achieved some popularity. I believed that previous English anthologists had unjustly, even unaccountably, neglected our English carols, and promised myself to redress the balance. I hunted through many collections, and brought together a score or so of pieces which, considered merely as carols, were gems of the first water. But no sooner did I set them among our finer lyrics than, to my dismay, their colours vanished; the juxtaposition became an opposition which killed them, and all but half a dozen had to be withdrawn. There are few gems more beautiful than the amethyst: but an amethyst will not live in the company of rubies. A few held their own-- the exquisite 'I sing of a Maiden' for instance--

"I sing of a Maiden That is makeles;[1]

King of all kings To her son she ches.[2]

"He came al so still There his mother was, As dew in April That falleth on the gra.s.s.

"He came al so still To his mother's bour, As dew in April That falleth on the flour.

"He came al so still There his mother lay As dew in April That falleth on the spray.

"Mother and maiden Was never none but she; Well may such a lady G.o.ddes mother be."

[1] Without a mate.

[2] Chose.

Or 'Lestenyt, lordings,' or 'Of one that is so fair and bright;' and my favourite, 'The Seven Virgins,' set among the ballads lost none of its lovely candour. But on the whole, and sorely against my will, it had to be allowed that our most typical carols will not bear an ordeal through which many of the rudest ballads pa.s.s safely enough. So it will be found, I suspect, with the carols of other nations. I take a typical English one, exhumed not long ago by Professor Flugel from a sixteenth century MS.

at Balliol College, Oxford, and pounced upon as a gem by two such excellent judges of poetry as Mr. Alfred W. Pollard and Mr. F. Sidgwick:--

"_Can I not sing but Hoy!

The jolly shepherd made so much joy!_ The shepherd upon a hill he sat, He had on him his tabard[1] and his hat, His tar-box, his pipe and his flagat;[2]

And his name was called jolly, jolly Wat, For he was a good herd's-boy, Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy."

"The shepherd upon a hill was laid His dog to his girdle was tayd, He had not slept but a little braid But _Gloria in excelsis_ was to him said Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy.

"The shepherd on a hill he stood, Round about him his sheep they yode,[3]

He put his hand under his hood, He saw a star as red as blood.

Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy."

The shepherd of course follows the star, and it guides him to the inn and the Holy Family, whom he wors.h.i.+ps:--

"'Now farewell, mine own herdsman Wat!'

'Yea, 'fore G.o.d, Lady, even so I hat:[4]

Lull well Jesu in thy lap, And farewell Joseph, with thy round cap!'

Ut hoy!

For in his pipe he made so much joy."

[1] Short coat.

[2] Flagon.

[3] Went.

[4] Am hight, called.

Set beside this the following Burgundian carol (of which, by the way, you will find a charming translation in Lady Lindsay's _A Christmas Posy_):--

"Giullo, pran ton tamborin; Toi, pran tai fleute, Robin.

Au son de ces instruman-- Turelurelu, patapatapan-- Au son de ces instruman Je diron Noel gaiman.

"C'eto lai mode autrefoi De loue le Roi de Roi; Au son de ces instruman-- Turelurelu, patapatapan-- Au son de ces instruman Ai nos an fau faire autan.

"Ce jor le Diale at ai cu, Randons an graice ai Jesu; Au son de ces instruman-- Turelurelu, patapatapar-- Au son de ces instruman Fezon lai nique ai Satan.

"L'homme et Dei son pu d'aicor Que lai fleute et le tambor.

Au son de ces instruman-- Turelurelu, patapatapan-- Au son de ces instruman Chanton, danson, santons-an!"

To set either of these delightful ditties alongside of the richly-jewelled lyrics of Keats or of Swinburne, of Victor Hugo or of Gautier would be to sin against congruity, even as to sing them in church would be to sin against congruity.

There was one carol, however, which I was fain to set alongside of 'The Seven Virgins,' and omitted only through a scruple in tampering with two or three stanzas, necessary to the sense, but in all discoverable versions so barbarously uncouth as to be quite inadmissible. And yet 'The Holy Well' is one of the loveliest carols in the language, and I cannot give up hope of including it some day: for the peccant verses as they stand are quite evidently corrupt, and if their originals could be found I have no doubt that the result would be flawless beauty. Can any of my readers help to restore them?

'The Holy Well,' according to Mr. Bramley, is traditional in Derbys.h.i.+re.

'Joshua Sylvester,' in _A Garland of Christmas Carols_, published in 1861, took his version from an eighteenth-century broadsheet printed at Gravesend, and in broadsheet form it seems to have been fairly common.

I choose the version given by Mr. A. H. Bullen in his _Carols and Poems_, published by Nimmo in 1886:--

"As it fell out one May morning, And upon one bright holiday, Sweet Jesus asked of His dear mother If He might go to play.

"To play, to play, sweet Jesus shall go, And to play pray get you gone; And let me hear of no complaint At night when you come home.

"Sweet Jesus went down to yonder town, As far as the Holy Well, And there did see as fine children, As any tongue can tell.

"He said, G.o.d bless you every one, And your bodies Christ save and see: Little children shall I play with you, And you shall play with Me?"

So far we have plain sailing; but now, with the children's answer, comes the trouble:--

"But they made answer to Him, No: They were lords' and ladies sons; And He, the meanest of them all, Was but a maiden's child, born in an ox's stall.

"Sweet Jesus turn'd Him around, And He neither laughed nor smiled, But the tears came trickling from His eyes Like water from the skies."

A glance, as I contend, shows these lines to be corrupt: they were not written, that is to say, in the above form, which violates metre and rhyme-arrangement, and is both uncouth and redundant. The carol now picks up its pace again and proceeds--

"Sweet Jesus turned Him round about, To His mother's dear home went He, And said, I have been in yonder town As far as you can see."

Some versions give 'As after you can see.' Jesus repeats the story precisely as it has been told, with His request to the children and their rude answer. Whereupon Mary says:--

"Though You are but a maiden's child, Born in an ox's stall, Though art the Christ, the King of Heaven, And the Saviour of them all.

"Sweet Jesus, go down to yonder town As far as the Holy Well, And take away those sinful souls And dip them deep in h.e.l.l.

"Nay, nay, sweet Jesus said, Nay, nay, that may not be; There are too many sinful souls Crying out for the help of Me."

On this exquisite close the carol might well end, as Mr. Bullen with his usual fine judgment makes it end. But the old copies give an additional stanza, and a very silly one:--

"O then spoke the angel Gabriel, Upon one good St. Stephen, Although you're but a maiden's child, You are the King of Heaven."

'One good St. Stephen' is obviously an ignorant misprint for 'one good set steven,' _i.e._ 'appointed time,' and so it appears in Mr. Bramley's book, and in Mr. W. H. Husk's _Songs of the Nativity_. But the stanza is foolish, and may be dismissed. To amend the text of the children's answer is less legitimate. Yet one feels sorely tempted; and I cannot help suggesting that the original ran something like this:--

"But they made answer to Him, No: They were lords and ladies all; And He was but a maiden's child, Born in an ox's stall.