What tongue can paint lord Albret's woe,

The bitter tears he shed,

The bitter pangs that wrung

his heart,

To find his lady dead?

140

He beat his breast: he tore his hair;

And shedding many a tear,

At length he askt to see his son ;

The son that cost so dear.

New sorrowe seiz'd the damsells all:

145

At length they faultering say;

"Alas! my lord, how shall we tell ?

"A blood-red cross was on his arm;

"A dragon on his breast:

155

"A little garter all of gold

"Was round his leg exprest.

"Three carefull nurses we provide

“ Our little lord to keep :

"One gave him sucke, one gave him food,

“ And one did lull to sleep.

160

"But

"But lo! all in the dead of night,

"We heard a fearful sound:

"Loud thunder clapt; the castle shook;

"And lightning flasht around.

"Dead with affright at first we lay;

165

"But rousing up anon,

"We ran to see our little lord:

"Our little lord was gone!

"But how or where we could not tell;

"For lying on the ground,

170

"In deep and magic slumbers laid,

"The nurses there we found."

O grief on grief! lord Albret said:
No more his tongue cou'd say,

When falling in a deadly swoone,
Long time he lifeless lay,

175

A fair and stately oake,

Whose vigorous arms are torne away

By some rude thunder-stroke.

At

185

At length his castle irksome grew,
He loathes his wonted home;

His native country he forsakes,

In foreign lands to roame.

There up

and downe he wandered far,

190

Clad in a palmer's gown:

Till his brown locks grew white as wool,

His beard as thistle down.

At length, all wearied, down in death

He laid his reverend head.

Meantime amid the lonely wilds

His little son was bred.

There the weird lady of the woods

Had borne him far away,

195

And train'd him up in feates of armes,

And every martial play.

200

II.

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

The following ballad is given (with some corrections) from two ancient black-letter copies in the Pepys Collection: one of which is in 12mo, the other in folio.

OF

F Hector's deeds did Homer sing;
And of the sack of stately Troy,
What griefs fair Helena did bring,

Which was sir Paris' only joy:

And by my pen I will recite

St. George's deeds, an English knight.

Against the Sarazens so rude

Fought he full long and many a day;

Where many gyants he subdu'd,

In honour of the Christian way:

And after many adventures past

To Egypt land he came at last.

Now, as the story plain doth tell,

Within that countrey there did rest

A dreadful dragon fierce and fell,

Whereby they were full sore opprest :

Who by his poisonous breath each day,
Did many of the city slay.

5

10

15

The

The grief whereof did grow so great

Throughout the limits of the land, That they their wise-men did intreat

To shew their cunning out of hand; What way they might this fiend destroy, That did the countrey thus annoy.

The wise-men all before the king

This answer fram'd incontinent;

The dragon none to death might bring
By any means they could invent :

20

25

His skin more hard than brass was found,
That sword nor spear could pierce nor wound. 30

When this the people understood,

They cryed out most piteouslye,

The dragon's breath infects their blood,
That every day in heaps they dye:

Among them such a plague it bred,

35

The living scarce could bury the dead.

No means there were, as they could hear,
For to appease the dragon's rage,

But to present some virgin clear,

Whose blood his fury might asswage;

40

Each day he would a maiden eat,

For to allay his hunger great.