And they killed the lord.

Thrice the Tartars shot--
They are breaking in the tower,
The lady is in their power.

Away, away it goes,
Over the green meadows,
Black, black the walls arose!

"O lady, O turn back,
To thy walls so sad and black.

"O walls, ye dreary walls!
So sad and black are you,
Because your lord they slew!

"Because your lord is slain,
Your lady is dragged away
Into captivity!
A slave for life to be,
Far, far in Tartary!"

Among the ballads of almost all nations we find some that illustrate
the mournful and destitute state of _motherless orphans_. There seems
to be hardly any feeling, which comes more directly home to the
affectionate compassion of the human heart, than the pitiable and
touching condition of helpless little beings left to the tender
mercies of a _stepmother_; who, with her traditional severity, may be
called a kind of standing bugbear of the popular imagination. The
Danes have a beautiful ballad, in which the ghost of a mother is
roused by the wailings and sufferings of her deserted offspring, to
break with supernatural power the gravestone, and to re-enter, in the
stillness of the night, the neglected nursery, in order to cheer, to
nurse, to comb and wash the dear seven little ones, whom God once
intrusted to her care. It is one of the most affecting pieces of
popular poetry we ever have met with. The Slavic nations have nothing
that can be compared with it in _beauty_; but most of them have
several ballads on the same subject; and in a general collection, the
"Orphan Ballads" would fill a whole chapter.[61] The simple ditty
which we give here as another specimen of Polish popular poetry,
exceedingly rude as it is in its form, and even defective in rhyme and
metre, cannot but please and touch us by its very simplicity.

POOR ORPHAN CHILD.[62]

Poor little orphan is wandering about,
Seeking its mother and weeping aloud.

Jesus Christ met it, mildly to it spake:
"Where art thou roaming, poor little babe?

"Go not, go not, babe, too far thou wilt roam,
And goest e'er so far, not to thy mother come.

"Now turn and go, dear babe, to the green cemetery,
From out her deep grave thy mother will speak to thee."

"Wo! at my grave who's knocking so wild?"
"Mother! dear mother! it's I, thy poor child!

"Take me to thee, take me,
Ill I fare without thee!"

"Go home, my babe, and thy strange mother tell,