English

Prologue of Robert Copland.

Copland.

WHY should I muse suche tryfles for to wryte
Or wanton toyes, but for the appetyte
Of wandryng braynes, that seke for thynges new
And do not reche if they be fals or trew.

Quidam.

With what newes? or here ye any tidinges
Of the pope, of the Emperour, or of kynges
Of martyn Luther, or of the great Turke
Of this and that, and how the world doth worke.

Copland.

The excuse of the Author

TO all archewyues I do pray instantly
And to all wydowes of the seconde degree
Me to excuse, that ignorantly
Your wordes to wryth I haue taken on me
For surely it is of no malignitie
But only to comforte young wyues that haue
Young louyng husbandes in their felicite
How after their death they may them haue

PART II

The morning comes, the dawning glooms,
The westlin' wind doth blaw,
And it snorts and spits in spitefu' fits,
Wi' rain, and sleet, and snaw,
Whilk sperge and snift athort the lift;
Lord Arthur's Seat looks through the drift,
And the loom o' Berwick Law.

The sailors sing a fareweel sang
To the land o' their love and birth;
The anchor's weigh'd, and the sails are set,

PART I.

The ship rides in the roads o' Leith,
Awaiting the westlin' breeze;
Wi' the first fair gale she is bound to sail
Far, far across the seas.

And she has in baith meat and drink,
Wad fend a score o' men;
Eneuch to sair them a' and mair,
Till she comes back again;
But for every man there is on board,
O' mice there's ten times ten.

Again 'twas Easter; Christ from Olivet gazes
Down on the city in that vale of doom;
From all her battlements no cross now blazes,
But one still shyly stands above his tomb.

From dome of mosque, from minaret and tower,
Far o'er the land the golden crescent gleams;
Calling to prayer, the muezzin tells the hour
Where Solomon's temple proudly flung its beams.

The stone cares not what emblem they have wrought it,
Whether a temple, church, or mosque it make!
Counting all one — (a lesson men have taught it) —

Again 'twas Easter once, and Christ stood glancing
Once more from Olivet's heights adown the vale:
Elsewhere on all the fields was Spring advancing,
But all was desolate here, and gray and pale.

Yet, as the swallow, where the conflagration
Laid a fair mansion waste, still hovers round,
And soon, though burned her former habitation,
Her nest new-built in ruined wall is found;

So, to these scenes of wreck and desolation,
Man slowly ventured back, and in the stone
Built hut, house, palace for his habitation,

In Eastern lands where — as two children playing
Peep with their ruddy cheeks from blooming bowers
The fairy legend and the wise old saying
Spring up in rosy woods among the flowers;

There many a simple herdsman tells the story,
How Jesus Christ, a pilgrim, walks unseen,
Clothed in his resurrection-robes of glory,
Each Easter morn, on Olivet's heights of green;

Down on his former earthly pathway gazing,
Where cross and shroud once rose before his view;
Where Zion sate, in golden splendor blazing,

The billowy Appalachian mountains glow
In evening redness, while, with pealings low,
Through the plantation sounds the evening-bell,
And silence slowly sinks on wood and dell.

The music-leader of the forest hoar,
The woodpecker, is tapping time no more;
He knows he ne'er can catch the harmony
Of howlet's screech and paroquet's wild cry.

I see, beneath a sycamore's green shade,
At a broad table, of cashew-nut made,
The planter; silvery-white the tankard gleams
From which the tea-tree's fragrant beverage steams.

Before Pompeii's forum's triumph-portal
That welcomed conquerors home, wide open flying,
A sun-browned Lazarone — happy mortal! —
Calm as philosophy in dust, is lying.

A marble block — strange pillow! — lies beneath him;
Well might a God that pedestal be gracing! —
A laurel's waving boughs with shadows wreath him,
And shadow-leaves across his nose are chasing.

The day is long, and so, at times, it chances
That divers thoughts infest his brain's dark chamber;
Round the old stone, like mosses, grow his fancies,

Is this the day of doom to goose and cock,
That, screaming so, through yard and hedge they stalk?
The farmer marches out to muster-field;
But first some strutting tail a plume must yield!

'Tis Freedom's feast! 'Tis Independent Day!
At Pittsburg's gates are seen, in war's array,
The sons of plough and workshop, motley-clad,
The bald head here, and there the rose-lipped lad!

The captain's nodding feather glides through all,
'Mong white and copper-colored, short and tall!
The jacket here and next the long-tailed blue,