XVI
As Ye came from the Holy Land.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A PILGRIM AND TRAVELLER
The scene of this song is the same as in No. 14. The pilgrimage to
Walsingham suggested the plan of many popular pieces. In the Pepys Collection, vol.
i. p. 226, is a kind of interlude in the old ballad style, of which the first stanza alone is
worth reprinting.
As I went to Walsingham,
To the shrine with speede,
Met I with a jolly palmer
In a pilgrimes weede.
Now God you save, you jolly palmer
'Welcome, lady gay,
Oft have I sued to thee for love.'
-- Oft have I said you nay."
The pilgrimages undertaken on pretence of religion, were often productive of
affairs of gallantry, and led the votaries to no other shrine than that of Venus.[1]
The following ballad was once very popular; it is quoted in Fletcher'sKnight
of the burning Pestle, act ii. sc. ult. and in another old play, called,Hans Beer-pot, his
invisible Comedy, &c." 4to. 1618, act i. The copy below was communicated to the
Editor by the late Mr. Shenstone, as corrected by him from an ancient copy, and
supplied with a concluding stanza.
We have placed this, andGentle Herdsman, &c. thus early in the Series, upon
a presumption that they must have been written, if not before the dissolution of the
monasteries, yet while the remembrance of them was fresh in the minds of the people.
"As ye came from the holy land
Of blessed Walsingham,
O met you not my true love
As by the way ye came?"
"How should I know your true love,
That have met many a one,
As I came from the holy land,
That have both come, and gone?"
"My love is neither white,[2] nor browne,
But as the heavens faire;
There is none hath her form divine,
Either in earth, or ayre."
"Such an one did I meet, good Sir,
With an angelicke face;
Who like a nymphe, a queene appeard
Both in her gait, her grace."
"Yes: she hath cleane forsaken me,
And left me all alone;
Who some time loved me as her life,
And called me her owne."