Читать книгу Story-Telling Ballads. Selected and Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Boys' and Girls' Own Reading онлайн

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In Scottland where he lay,

Who sent Erle Percy present word,

He wold prevent his sport,

The English Erle, not fearing that,

Did to the woods resort,

With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,

All chosen men of might,

Who knew ffull well in time of neede

To ayme their shafts arright.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran

To chase the fallow deere;

On Munday they began to hunt

Ere daylight did appeare;

And long before high noone they had

A hundred fat buckes slaine.

Then having dined, the drovyers went

To rouze the deare againe;

The bowmen mustered on the hills,

Well able to endure;

Theire backsids all with speciall care,

That day were guarded sure.

The hounds ran swiftly through the woods

The nimble deere to take,

That with their cryes the hills and dales

An eccho shrill did make.

Lord Percy to the quarry went

To view the tender deere;

Quoth he, “Erle Douglas promised once

This day to meete me heere;

But if I thought he wold not come,

Noe longer wold I stay.”

With that, a brave younge gentlman

Thus to the Erle did say,