From far away we come to you, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. To tell of great tidings strange and true, Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. News, news of the Trinity, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. And Mary and Joseph from over the sea! Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. For as we wandered far and wide, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. What hap do ye deem there should us betide! Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. Under a bent when the night was deep, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. There lay three shepherds tending their sheep. Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. "O ye shepherds, what have ye seen, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. To slay your sorrow, and heal your teen?" Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. "In an ox-stall this night we saw, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. A babe and a maid without a flaw. Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. "There was an old man there beside, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. His hair was white and his hood was wide. Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. "And as we gazed this thing upon, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. Those twain knelt down to the Little One. Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. "And a marvellous song we straight did hear, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. That slew our sorrow and healed our care." Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. News of a fair and marvellous thing, The snow in the street and the wind on the door. Nowell, nowell, nowell, we sing! Minstrels and maids, stand forth on the floor. WILLIAM MORRIS. 45. DIRGE FOR THE YEAR. "ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead! For the Year is but asleep; "As an earthquake rocks a corse So white Winter, that rough nurse, For your Mother in her shroud.” "As the wild air stirs and sways The tree-swung cradle of a child, Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild, "January grey is here, Like a sexton by her grave; March with grief doth howl and rave; No. 1. MORNING SONG. This is from Cymbeline, act ii., scene 2. Cloten, in whose mouth it is put, describes it as "a very excellent good conceited thing, after a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it." 1. 2. Phœbus. The sun-god. See Classical Dictionary. 1. 4. lies. "The disagreement in number between 'lies' and its nominative is not worth all that has been written about it," says Richard Grant White. "A relic of an old usage, it was common enough in Shakespeare's day." See Romeo and Juliet, ii., 4: — "Both our remedies Within thy help and holy physic lies." No. 6. HUNTING SONG. This song is included in the continuation of Queenhoo Hall, an unfinished romance by Joseph Strutt, published by Sir Walter Scott in 1808. It was this novel that first inspired Scott with the idea of writing a historical romance like his Waverley, which, however, was not completed until six years later. No. 7. MAY-DAY. From Hesperides: or, the Works both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick, 1648. This poem possesses a double interest on account of its allusions to ancient May-day customs in England. "Bourne tells us that in his time, in the villages in the north of England, the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a little after midnight on the morning of that day, and walk to some neighboring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, where they broke down branches from the trees and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done they returned homewards with their booty about the time of sunrise, and made their doors and windows triumph in the flowery spoil." - Brande's Popular Antiquities. An old ballad, called The Milkmaid's Life, published about 1630, says: 1. 28. beads. "Upon the first of May, With garlands fresh and gay, For such a season meet, They passe their time away. They nimbly their feet doe ply, And bravely try the victory In honour o' th' milking paile." From Old English bede, or Anglo-Saxon bed, prayer. When round balls with holes through them came to be used for counting prayers, the name was transferred to them. Alexander Hume was a No. 8. THE STORY OF A SUMMER DAY. minister of the Scotch Kirk and a contemporary of Shakespeare's. His poems were first published in 1599 in a black-letter volume entitled Hymnes, or Sacred Songs. Thomas Campbell, who includes a portion of this poem in his Specimens of the British Poets, describes it as containing "a train of images that seem peculiarly pleasing and unborrowed, — the pictures of a poetical mind, humble but genuine in its cast." See 1. 1. shaid. Perfect tense of the verb shed in its now obsolete meaning of to separate from A.-S. sceadan, to divide, to part. Genesis, i., 4. 1. 6. vively. In a lively manner. 1. 16. muir and stripe. Moor and rill. 1. 21. glistering astres. Glittering stars. 1. 23. offuskèd. Obfuscated, eclipsed. 1. 29. boulden. Inflated. 1. 38. skails. Disperses. 1. 52. steir. Stir. 1. 57. cessile. "This must, I think, be intended the yielding, or buxom air." - Trench. 1. 60. repeats. See note on "lies," No. 1, above. 1. 74. trained in a chair. Drawn in a chariot. 1. 93. is went. Is wended. slake. Abate. No. 9. HOLIDAY IN ARCADIA. Arcadia is the typical home of woodmen, shepherds, and country pleasures. Pan was the god of flocks, herds, the woods and the fields. 1. 13. Philomel. See The Nightingale by Richard Barnfield, page 47; also Itylus, by Swinburne, page 354. Tereus was king of Daulis. His wife was Procne, the sister of Philomela. Wishing to marry Philomela, he had Procne removed to a secret place, and gave out that she was dead. Philomela became his wife, and afterwards, fearing that she had discovered and would publish his falsehood, he cut out her tongue. But she contrived to weave the story into the pattern of a peplum, which she sent to Procne. Tereus thereupon attempted to slay both the sisters with an axe. They, however, prayed the gods to change them into birds, and Procne thereupon was transformed into a swallow and Philomela into a nightingale. Tereus himself became a hoopoe. The story is told somewhat differently by different writers, but the main facts remain the same. The cry 66 Tereu, tereu!" of the nightingale seems to have suggested the name Tereus. 1. 16. Thracian lyre. The reference is to the music of Orpheus, a Thracian poet, who is said to have played so sweetly on his lyre that even inanimate things were charmed by it. See Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. No. II. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE. A song from As You Like It, ii., 5. No. 12. EVENING. 7. brede ethereal. the word brede in quite a different sense. page 343: Heavenly braid. Keats uses See Ode on a Grecian Urn, With brede of marble men and maidens overwrought." |