"Some watery-hued, as the blue wavy sea."[7]
Outside the pages of Shakespeare, we shall for the next two hundred years look in vain for so genuine a love of scenery and natural phenomena as we find in fifteenth-century Scottish poetry. These poets obtained many of their images of nature at first hand, an achievement rare in any age.
[Illustration: EARLY TITLE PAGE OF ROBIN HOOD.]
"Songs for Man or Woman, of All Sizes."--When Shakespeare shows us Autolycus offering such songs at a rustic festival,[8] the great poet emphasizes the fondness for the ballad which had for a long time been developing a taste for poetry. While it is difficult to assign exact dates to the composition of many ballads, we know that they flourished in the fifteenth century. They were then as much prized as the novel is now, and like it they had a story to tell. The verse was often halting, but it succeeded in conveying to the hearer tales of love, of adventure, and of mystery. These ballads were sometimes tinged with pathos; but there was an energy in the rude lines that made the heart beat faster and often stirred listeners to find in a dance an outlet for their emotions. Even now, with all the poetry of centuries from which to choose, it is refreshing to turn to a Robin Hood ballad and look upon the greensward, hear the rustle of the leaves in Nottingham forest, and follow the adventures of the hero. We read the opening lines:--
"There are twelve months in all the year, As I hear many say, But the merriest month in all the year Is the merry month of May."
"Now Robin Hood is to Nottingham gone, With a link a down, and a day, And there he met a silly old woman Was weeping on the way."
Of our own accord we finish the ballad to see whether Robin Hood rescued her sons, who were condemned to death for shooting the fallow deer. The ballad of the _Nut-Brown Maid_ has some touches that are almost Shakespearean.
Some of the carols of the fifteenth century give a foretaste of the Elizabethan song. One carol on the birth of the Christ-child contains stanzas like these, which show artistic workmanship, imaginative power, and, above all, rare lyrical beauty:--
"He cam also stylle to his moderes bowr, As dew in Aprille that Fallyt on the flour."