Medieval English Verse

Table Of Contents

Foreword
Introduction
Poems of the Nativity
1. “I sing of a Maiden”
2. “Bringing us bliss now”
3. “Holy Mary, mother mild”
4. “Lady, Lady, fair and bright”
5. “Of a Rose, a lovely Rose”
6. “Jesus, son most sweet and dear”
7. “Let us gather hand in hand”
8. “As I was lying down at night”
Poems on the Passion
9. “Upon a Holy Thursday, up rose Our Lord”
10. “Now sinks the sun beneath the wood”
11. “White was his naked breast”
12. “Lovely tear from lovely eye”
13. “You who created everything”
14. “Man and woman, look on me!”
15. “Look on your Lord, Man, hanging on the Rood”
16. “Mother and Maiden, come and see!”
17. “My folk, what have I done to you”
Poems of Adoration
18. “All other love is like the moon”
19. A Goodly Orison to Our Lady
20. “Holy Mary, Lady bright”
21. “A maid of Christ made warm request”
22. “Adam lay in bondage”
23. “Love made firm in Christ”
Poems of Sin and Death
24. “Merry it is while summer lasts”
25. “The life of this world”
26. “When the turf is your tower”
27. “Now that man is hale and whole”
28. “When my eyes are fogged”29. “Long life, O Man, you hope to gain”
30. The Ten Ages of Man
31. “Hard it is to flit”32. “Ubi Sunt qui ante Nos Fuerunt?”33. “Holy Lady Mary, Mother, Maid”
Miscellaneous Religious Poems
34. The Ten Commandments
35. The Covetous Man
36. “No longer will I wicked be!”
37. “Lord, you called to me”
38. The Thrush and the Nightingale
39. “The man who would the truth tell”
40. “Though you be king of tower and town”
41. “Pride is out and pride is in”
42. “Blowing was made for sport and game”
43. The Adulterous Falmouth Squire
Selections from the Bestiary
44. The Lion
45. The Stag
46. The Whale
Miscellaneous Secular Poems
47. “I am from Ireland”
48. “Maiden on the moor lay”
49. “Of every kind of tree”
50. “All night by the rose, rose”
51. “I am Rose, alas for me”
52. “Tell me, broom wizard, tell me”
53. “Now blossoms the spray”
54. “Love is soft and love is sweet”
55. “I newly have a garden”
56. “I have a little sister”
57. “I have a noble cockerel”
58. The Servant Girl’s Holiday
59. “Not long ago I met a clerk”
60. “Brainy teacher, is it your”
61. “Swarthy smoke-blackened smiths”
62. “The Man in the Moon can stand or stride”
63. “Lord who grants us life and looks upon us all”
64. The Lion
65. The Bear
66. The Dragon
Political Poems
67. Song of the Battle of Lewes, 1264
68. The Battle of Bannockburn, by Lawrence Minot
69. On the Death of Edward III
70. Patiene, or Jonah and the Whale
71. Pearl
The Harley Lyrics
Religious Poems
72. “This middle-earth was made for man”
73. “O God above us, grant my boon”
74. “The tears of weeping wet my cheek”
75. “O God, who does all deeds of might”
76. “Winter rouses all my grief”
77. “Now fade the rose and lily-flower”
78. “Jesu, through your noble might”
79. “With sadness in my song”
80. “Mother, stand firm beneath the Rood!”
81. “When I see blossoms thronging”
82. “The heart of Man can hardly know” (i)

Secular Poems
83. “The heart of Man can hardly know”
84. “Spring’s about with love again”
85. “Between March and April”
86. “Through Ribblesdale I’d like to ride”
87. “A beauty white as whale’s bone”
88. “I know of a beauty, a beryl most bright”
89. “Love hurts me with its craving”
90. “In Maytime in the merry dawn”
91. “In April, when, as all can hear”
92. “Riding in a wood unknown”
93. “My death I love, my life I hate”
94. Sir Orfeo
Two Comic Verse Tales
95. Dame Siriz and the Weeping Bitch
96. The Fox and the Wolf in the Well

Appendix I: Provenance of the Poems
Appendix II: Further Bibliography