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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“Loe, yonder doth Erle Douglas come,

His men in armour bright,

Full twenty hundred Scottish speres

All marching in our sight,

“All men of pleasant Tivydale,

Fast by the river Tweede:”

“O ceaze your sportts!” Erle Percy said,

“And take your bowes with speede.

“And now with me, my countrymen,

Your courage forth advance!

For there was never champion yett

In Scottland nor in France,

“That ever did on horsbacke come,

But if my hap it were,

I durst encounter man for man,

With him to breake a spere.”

Erle Douglas on his milke white steede,

Most like a Baron bold,

Rode formost of his company,

Whose armour shone like gold.

“Shew me,” sayd hee, “whose men you bee,

That hunt soe boldly heere,

That without my consent doe chase

And kill my fallow deere.”

The first man that did answer make

Was noble Percy hee,

Who sayd, “Wee list not to declare,

Nor shew whose men wee bee.

“Yett wee will spend our deerest blood

Thy cheefest harts to slay.”

Then Douglas swore a solempne oathe,

And thus in rage did say;