e 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."

"He cam also stylle
ther his moder lay,
As dew in Aprille
that fallyt on the spray"[9]

We saw that the English tongue during its period of exclusion from the
Norman court gained strength from coming in such close contact with
life. Although the higher types of poetry were for the most part
wanting during the fifteenth century, yet the ballads multiplied and
sang their songs to the ear of life. Critics may say that the rude
stanzas seldom soar far from the ground, but we are again reminded of
the invincible strength of Antaeus so long as he kept close to his
mother earth. English poetry is so great because it has not withdrawn
from life, because it was nurtured in such a cradle. When Shakespeare
wrote his plays, he found an audience to understand and to appreciate
them. Not only those who occupied the boxes, but also those who stood
in the pit, listened intelligently to his dramatic stories. The ballad
had played its part in teaching the humblest home to love poetry.
These rude fireside songs were no mean factors in preparing the nation
to welcome Shakespeare.

William Tyndale, 1490?-1536.--The Reforma