Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Popular music of the olden time > Volume 2

REIGN OF CHARLES IX.
539
If on your death-bed you do lie,
What needs the tale you're tellin' ;
I cannot keep you from your death ;
Farewell, said Barbara Allen.
He turn'd his face unto the wall,
As deadly pangs he fell in :
Adieu ! adieu 1 adieu to you all,
Adieu to Barbara Allen.
As she was walking o'er the fields,
She heard the bell a knellin' ;
And every stroke did seem to say,
Unworthy Barbara Allen.
She turn'd her body round about,
And spied the corpse a coming ;
Lay down, lay down the corpse, she said,
That I may look upon him.
With scornful eye she looked down,
Her cheek with laughter swellin' ;
Whilst all her friends cried out amain,
Unworthy Barbara Allen.
When he was dead, and laid in grave,
Her heart was struck with sorrow,
O mother, mother, make my bed,
For I shall die to-morrow.
Hard-hearted creature him to slight,
Who loved me so dearly :
O that I had been more kind to him
When he was alive and near me !
She, on her death-bed as she lay,
Begg'd to be buried by him ;
And sore repented of the day,
That she did e'er deny him.
Farewell, she said, ye virgins all,
And shun the fault I fell in :
Henceforth take warning by the fall
Of cruel Barbara Allen.
O BRAVE ARTHUR OF BRADLEY.
" Sing him Arthur of Bradley, or, / am the Dulte of Norfolk."
Wycherley's Gentleman's Dancing Master, 1673.
When I first read the ballad of " Arthur of Bradley," it struck me imme-
diately that it must have been sung to the tune of Roger de Coverley. The words
ran so glibly to the tune, that I could scarcely forbear to hum it over to them.
I still retain the impression, and the probabilities are strengthened by having traced--
Roger de Coverley to an earlier date, and as a Lancashire hornpipe. In the
ballad, Arthur calls upon the piper to play " a hornpipe, that went fine on the
bagpipe," and no other dance is mentioned at the wedding. There are many
places called Bradley, in England, and, among them, one in Yorkshire, another
in Lancashire, and a third in Derbyshire.
All the black-letter copies of the ballad of " Arthur of Bradley" that I have
noticed, direct it to be sung "to a pleasant new tune ;" so that, unless a copy
of Roger de Coverley can be found under the name of " Arthur of Bradley," or
" Saw ye not Pierce the Piper ? " the identification will remain doubtful. One
thing, however, is certain, — that " Arthur of Bradley" must have been sung to
a tune in f time, and to one that consisted of twelve bars. % time is common to
English jig and hornpipe tunes.
" Arthur-a-Bradley" is referred to by Ben Jonson, Dekker, and other Eliza-
bethan dramatists ; in Braithwait's Strappado for the Divell; and in the ballad of
" Robin Hood's birth, breeding, valour, and marriage." See also Gilford's notes
to his edition of Ben Jonson, iv., 401, 410, and 533.
The ballad is printed in " An Antidote against Melancholy : made up in pills,
compounded of witty ballads, jovial songs, and merry catches," 1661, and in
Ritson's " Robin Hood," ii. 210. Ritson retains the title of the black-letter
copies, " A Merry Wedding ; or, brave Arthur of Bradley."