"I grant the same, O Lord," quoth she;
"Most lewdly did I live;

But yet the loving father did
His prodigal son forgive."

"So I forgive thy soul," he sayd,

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Through thy repenting crye;
Come enter then into my joy,

I will not thee denye."

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140

XIII.

The Bride's Burial.

From two ancient copies in black-letter: one in the Pepys Collection, the other in the British Museum.

To the tune of The Lady's Fall.

COME mourne, come mourne with mee,

You loyall lovers all ;

Lament my loss in weeds of woe,

Whom griping grief doth thrall.

Her pretty lilly hands

With fingers long and small,
In colour like the earthlye claye,
Yea, cold and stiff withall.

When as the morning-star

Her golden gates had spred,
And that the glittering sun arose
Forth from fair Thetis' bed;

Then did my love awake,
Most like a lilly-flower,

And as the lovely queene of heaven,
So shone shee in her bower.

Attired was shee then

Like Flora in her pride,

Like one of bright Diana's nymphs,
So look'd my loving bride.

And as fair Helen's face

Did Grecian dames besmirche,
So did my dear excced in sight
All virgins in the church.

When we had knitt the knott
Of holy wedlock-band,
Like alabaster joyn'd to jett,
So stood we hand in hand;

Then lo! a chilling cold

Strucke every vital part,

And griping grief, like pangs of death,

Seiz'd on my true love's heart.

Down in a swoon she fell,

VOL. II.

As cold as any stone;

Like Venus picture lacking life,
So was my love brought home.

At length her rosye red

Throughout her comely face,

As Phoebus beames with watry cloudes,
Was cover'd for a space.

When with a grievous groane,

And voice both hoarse and drye,

"Farewell," quoth she, "my loving friend,

For I this daye must dye;

"The messenger of God

With golden trumpe I see,

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65

70

Did fetch a grievous groane,

As tho' his heart would burst in twaine,

And thus he made his moane.

In earth they laid her then,
For hungry wormes a preye;
So shall the fairest face alive

At length be brought to claye.

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XIV.
Dulcina.

Given from two ancient copies, one in black-print, in the Pepys Collection, the other in the Editor's folio MS. Each of these contained a stanza not found in the other. What seemed the best readings were selected from both.

This song is quoted as very popular in Walton's Compleat Angler, chap. ii. It is more ancient than the ballad of Robin Good-fellow, printed below, which yet is supposed to have been written by Ben Jonson.

To depart her presence soe;

Having a thousand tongues to allure him,
And but one to bid him goe.

15

Where lipps invite,

And eyes delight,

And cheekes, as fresh as rose in June,

Persuade delay;

"What boots?

she say,

66

Forgoe me now, come to me soone."

20