Bytuene Mershe ant Averil When spray biginnith to spring, The lutel foul hath hire wyl On hire lud to synge: Ich libbe in love-longinge For semlokest of alle thynge, He may me blisse bringe, Icham in hire bandoun. An hendy hap ichabbe y-hent, Ichot from hevene it is me sent, From alle wymmen my love is lent, And lyht on Alisoun.
Here you have alliteration in plenty; you even have what some hold to be the pattern of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse (though in practice disregarded, may be, as often as not), the chosen initial used twice in the first line and once at least in the second:
From alle wymmen my _l_ove is _l_ent, And _l_yht on A_l_isoun.
But if a man cannot see a difference infinitely deeper than any similarity between this song of Alison and the old Anglo-Saxon verse--_a difference of nature_--I must despair of his literary sense.
What has happened? Well, in Normandy, too, and in another tongue, men are singing much the same thing in the same way:
A la fontenelle Qui sort seur l'araine, Trouvai pastorella Qui n'iert pas vilaine... Merci, merci, douce Marote, N'oçiez pas vostre ami doux,
and this Norman and the Englishman were singing to a new tune, which was yet an old tune re-set to Europe by the Provence, the Roman Province; by the troubadours--Pons de Capdeuil, Bernard de Ventadour, Bertrand de Born, Pierre Vidal, and the rest, with William of Poitou, William of Poitiers. Read and compare; you will perceive that the note then set persists and has never perished. Take Giraud de Borneil--
Bel companhos, si dormetz o velhatz Non dortmatz plus, qu'el jorn es apropchatz--
and set it beside a lyric of our day, written without a thought of Giraud de Borneil--
Heigh! Brother mine, art a-waking or a-sleeping: Mind'st thou the merry moon a many summers fled? Mind'st thou the green and the dancing and the leaping? Mind'st thou the haycocks and the moon above them creeping?...
Quand erba vertz, e fuelha par E'l flor brotonon per verjan, E'l rossinhols autet e clar Leva sa votz e mov son chan, Joy ai de luy, e joy ai de la flor, Joy ai de me, e de me dons maior.
Why, it runs straight off into English verse--
When grass is green and leaves appear With flowers in bud the meads among, And nightingale aloft and clear Lifts up his voice and pricks his song, Joy, joy have I in song and flower, Joy in myself, and in my lady more.