* * * * *

Where my love's head is lying,
There rests a golden shrine;
And in it lies, locked hard and fast,
This fresh young heart of mine:
Oh would to God I had the key,--
I'd throw it in the Rhine;
What place on earth were more to me,
Than with my sweeting fine?

Where my love's feet are lying,
A fountain gushes cold,
And whoso tastes the fountain
Grows young and never old:
Full often at the fountain
I knelt and quenched my drouth,--
Yet tenfold rather would I kiss
My darling's rosy mouth!

And in my darling's garden[21]
Is many a precious flower;
Oh, in this budding season,
Would God 'twere now the hour
To go and pluck the roses
And nevermore to part:
I think full sure to win her
Who lies within my heart!

* * * * *

Now who this merry roundel
Hath sung with such renown?
That have two lusty woodsmen
At Freiberg in the town,--
Have sung it fresh and fairly,
And drunk the cool red wine:
And who hath sat and listened?--
Landlady's daughter fine!

[20] Translated from Boehme 'Altdeutsches Liederbuch,'
Leipzig, 1877, page 233. Lovers of folk-song will find this
book invaluable on account of the carefully edited musical
accompaniments. With it and Chappell, the musician has ample
material for English and German songs; for French, see
Tiersot, 'La Chanson Populaire en France.'

[21] The garden in these later songs is constantly a symbol
of love. To pluck the roses, etc., is conventional for making
love.

What with the more modern tone, and the lusty woodsmen, one has
deserted the actual dance, the actual communal origin of song; but one
is still amid communal influences. Another little song about the heart
and the key, this time from France, recalls one to the dance itself,
and to the simpler tone:--

Shut fast within a rose
I ween my heart must be;
No locksmith lives in France
Who can set it free,--
Only my lover Pierre,
Who took away the key![22]

[22] Quoted by Tiersot, page 88, from 'Chansons a Danser en
Rond,' gathered before 1704.

Coming back to England, and the search for her folk-song, it is in
order to begin with the refrain. A "clerk," in a somewhat artificial
lay to his sweetheart, has preserved as refrain what seems to be a bit
of communal verse:--

Ever and aye fo