Dish poetry editor Alice Quinn:

While on vacation, I’ve been listening to Natalie Merchant’s arrangements of traditional American folk music on her album entitled The House Carpenter’s Daughter.

They turned my mind to the selections of anonymous lyrics and songs from the 13^th through the 15^th centuries, chosen by W.H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson for their incomparable five-volume anthology, Poets of the English Language, published in the Viking Portable Library in 1950. (Sets of these can be found in good used bookstores all over the country and, of course, online.)

This is one of my favorites.

“The Unquiet Grave”:

“The wind doth blow today, my love,
And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true-love,
In cold grave she was lain.

“I’ll do as much for my true-love
As any young man may;
I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.”

The twelvemonth and a day being up,
The dead began to speak:
“Oh who sits weeping on my grave,
And will not let me sleep?”

“‘Tis I, my love, sits on your grave,
And will not let you sleep;
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,
And that is all I seek.”

“You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips;
But my breath smells earthy strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
Your time will not be long.

“‘Tis down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk,
The finest flower that e’er was seen
Is withered to a stalk.

“The stalk is withered dry, my love,
So will our hearts decay;
So make yourself content, my love,
Till God calls you away.”

(Photo by Matthew Murdock)