XVI. AS YE CAME FROM THE HOLY LAND.
Dialogue between a Pilgrim and Traveller.
[_]
The scene of this song is the same, as in num. XIV. The
pilgrimage to Walsingham suggested the plan of many popular
pieces. In the Pepys collection, Vol. I. p. 226, is a
kind of Interlude in the old ballad style, of which the first
stanza alone is worth reprinting,
As I went to Walsingham,
To the shrine with speede,
Met I with a jolly palmer
In a pilgrimes weede.
Now God you save, you jolly palmer!
“Welcome, lady gay,
“Oft have I sued to thee for love.”
—Oft have I said you nay.
The pilgrimages undertaken on pretence of religion, were
often productive of affairs of gallantry, and led the votaries
to no other shrine than that of Venus
.
The following ballad was once very popular; it is quoted
in Fletcher's “Knt. of the burning pestle,” Act 2. sc. ult.
and in another old play, called, “Hans Beer-pot, his invisible
Comedy, &c.” 4to, 1618; Act I.—The copy below
was communicated to the Editor by the late Mr. Shenstone
as corrected by him from an ancient MS, and supplied with a concluding stanza.
We have placed this, and Gentle Herdsman, &c.
thus early in the volume, upon a presumption that they must
have been written, if not before the dissolution of the monasteries,
yet while the remembrance of them was fresh in the minds of the people.
As ye came from the holy land
Of ‘blessed’ Walsingham,
O met you not with my true love
As by the way ye came?
“How should I know your true love,
“That have met many a one,
“As I came from the holy land,
“That have both come, and gone?”
My love is neither white
, nor browne,
But as the heavens faire;
There is none hath her form divine,
Either in earth, or ayre.
“Such an one did I meet, good sir,
“With an angelicke face;
“Who like a nymphe, a queene appeard
“Both in her gait, her grace.”
Yes: she hath cleane forsaken me,
And left me all alone;
Who some time loved me as her life,
And called me her owne.
“What is the cause she leaves thee thus,
“And a new way doth take,
“That some time loved thee as her life,
“And thee her joy did make?”
I that loved her all my youth,
Growe old now as you see;
Love liketh not the falling fruite,
Nor yet the withered tree.
For love is like a carelesse childe,
Forgetting promise past:
He is blind, or deaf, whenere he list;
His faith is never fast.
His ‘fond’ desire is fickle found,
And yieldes a trustlesse joye;
Wonne with a world of toil and care,
And lost ev'n with a toye.
Such is the love of womankinde,
Or Loves faire name abusde,
Beneathe which many vaine desires,
And follyes are excusde.
‘But true love is a lasting fire,
‘Which viewless vestals
tend,
‘That burnes for ever in the soule,
‘And knowes nor change, nor end.’
