Your appetite1 is to be light
Of love I weel espy:

For like as ye have said to me,

In likewise, hardily,

Ye would answer whoever it were,

In way of company.

It is said of old, soon hot, soon cold;

And so is a woman,

Wherefore I to the wood will go,
Alone, a banished man.

SHE.-If ye take heed, it is no need
Such words to say by me;

For oft ye prayed and me assayed,
Ere I loved you, pardie:

And though that I, of ancestry,

A baron's daughter be,

Yet have you proved how I you loved,

A squire of low degree;

And ever shall whatso befal;

To die therefore anon;

For, in my mind, of all mankind

I love but you alone.

HE.-A baron's child to be beguiled,

It were a cursed deed!

To be fellàw with an outlaw,

Almighty God forbid!

It better were, the poor squièr

Alone to forest yede,

Than I should say, another day,

That, by my cursed deed,

We were betrayed: wherefore, good maid,

The best rede that I can,

Is that I to the green wood go

Alone, a banished man.

SHE. Whatever befall, I never shall,

Of this thing you upbraid;

But, if ye go, and leave me so,
Then have ye me betrayed;

Remember weel, how that you deal;
For if ye, as ye said,

Be so unkind to leave behind,

Your love, the Nut-Brown Maid,

Trust me truly, that I shall die

Soon after ye be gone;

For in my mind, of all mankind

I love but you alone.

HE.-If that ye went, ye should repent;
For in the forest now

I have purveyed me of a maid,
Whom I love more than you;

1
1 Disposition.

Another fairèr than ever ye were,

I dare it weel avow,

And of you both each should be wroth

With other, as I trow:

It were mine ease to live in peace;

So will I, if I can:

Wherefore I to the wood will go,

Alone, a banished man.

SHE.-Though in the wood I understood

Ye had a paramour,

All this may not remove my thought,

But that I will be your.

And she shall find me soft and kind
And courteous every hour;

Glad to fulfill all that she will
Command me to my power.
For had ye, lo, an hundred mo,
Of them I would be one;

For, in my mind, of all mankind
I love but you alone.

HE.-Mine own dear love, I see thee prove,

That ye be kind and true;

Of maid and wife, in all my life,

The best that ever I knew.

Be merry and glad; no more be sad;

The case is changed now;

For it were ruth, that, for your truth,

Ye should have cause to rue.

Be not dismayed; whatever I said
To you, when I began;

I will not to the green wood go,

I am no banished man.

SHE.-These tidings be more glad to me,

Than to be made a queen,

If I were sure they would endure:

But it is often seen,

When men will break promise, they speak

The wordes on the spleen.

Ye shape some wile me to beguile,

And steel from me, I ween:

Than were the case worse than it was,

And I more woe-begone:

For, in my mind, of all mankind

I love but you alone.

HE.-Ye shall not need further to dread:

I will not disparage,

You (God defend!) sith ye descend

Of so great a lineàge.

Now understand; to Westmoreland,

Which is mine heritage,

I will you bring; and with a ring,

By way of marriàge,

I will you take, and lady make

As shortly as I can:

Thus have you won an earl's son,

And not a banished man.

The most celebrated of these poems, and the last that we shall notice, is the ballad of Chevy Chase. The incident which induced this ballad occurred in the early part of the reign of Henry the Fourth, and was as follows:-Percy, Earl of Northumberland, resolved to hunt for three days in the Scottish border, without asking leave of Douglas, the Scottish Earl, upon whose lands he would thus trespass. This was an insult which the gallant Douglas immediately resented, and as he resolved to repel the intruders by force, the conflict, which the poet has so graphically described, was the consequence. The scene of the action was the Cheviot hills. Of this ballad, Sir Phillip Sydney, in his 'Defense of Poetry,' remarks, ‘I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart more moved than with the sound of a trumpet.' The spelling of the original poem is now so nearly obsolete that we shall present it in a form in which it will be more readily understood :

CHEVY-CHASE.

God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all;

A woful hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chase befall;

To drive the deer with hound and horn,

Earl Percy took his way;

The child may rue that is unborn,

The hunting of that day.

The stout Earl of Northumberland,

A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer's days to take;

The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chase
To kill and bear away.
These tidings to Earl Douglas came,
In Scotland where he lay:

Who sent Earl Percy present word,
He would prevent his sport.
The English Earl, not fearing that,
Did to the woods resort

With fifteen hundred bow-men bold,

All chosen men of might,

Who knew full well in time of need,
To aim their shafts aright.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran,

To chase the fallow-deer:

On Monday they began to hunt,

Ere daylight did appear;

And long before high noon they had
An hundred fat bucks slain:
Then having dined, the drovers went
To rouse the deer again.

The bow-men muster'd on the hills,
Well able to endure;

Their backsides all, with special care,

That day were guarded sure.

The hounds ran swiftly through the woods,

The nimble deer to take,

That with their cries the hills and dales

An echo shrill did make.

Lord Percy to the quarry went,
To view the slaughter'd deer,
Quoth he, Earl Douglas promised
This day to meet me here.

But if I thought he would not come,
No longer would I stay.

With that, a brave young gentleman
Thus to the Earl did say:

Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come,
His men in armor bright;
Full twenty hundred Scottish spears
All marching in our sight;

All men of pleasant Tivydale,
Fast by the river Tweed:

O cease your sports, Earl Percy said,
And take your bows with speed:

And now with me, my countrymen,
Your courage forth advance;
For there was never champion yet,
In Scotland or in France,

That ever did on horseback come,
But if my hap it were,

I durst encounter man for man,
With him to break a spear.

Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed,

Most like a baron bold,

Rode foremost of his company,

Whose armor shone like gold.

Show me, said he, whose men you be
That hunt so boldly here,

That, without my consent, do chase

And kill my fallow-deer.

The first man that did answer make,

Was noble Percy he;

Who said, We list not to declare,

Nor show whose men we be:

Yet we will spend our dearest blood
Thy chiefest harts to slay.
Then Douglas swore a solemn oath,
And thus in rage did say,

Ere thus I will out-braved be,

One of us two shall die:

I know thee well, an earl thou art,
Lord Percy, so am I.

But trust me, Percy, pity it were,
And great offense to kill
Any of these our guiltless men,

For they have done no ill.

Let thou and I the battle try,
And set our men aside.
Accurst be he, Earl Percy said,
By whom this is denied.

Then stepp'd a gallant squire forth,
Witherington was his name,
Who said, I would not have it told
To Henry our king for shame,

That e'er my captain fought on foot,
And I stood looking on;

You be two earls, said Witherington,
And I a squire alone:

I'll do the best that do I may,

While I have power to stand:
While I have power to wield my sword,
I'll fight with heart and hand.

Our English archers bent their bows,
Their hearts were good and true;
At the first flight of arrows sent,
Full threescore Scots they slew.