barbarous severity of the game laws. An intense hatred of shams and
injustice lurks in every song; but the hatred is saved from bitterness by
the humor with which captives, especially rich churchmen, are solemnly
lectured by the bandits, while they squirm at sight of devilish tortures
prepared before their eyes in order to make them give up their golden
purses; and the scene generally ends in a bit of wild horse-play. There is
fighting enough, and ambush and sudden death lurk at every turn of the
lonely roads; but there is also a rough, honest chivalry for women, and a
generous sharing of plunder with the poor and needy. All literature is but
a dream expressed, and "Robin Hood" is the dream of an ignorant and
oppressed but essentially noble people, struggling and determined to be
free.

Far more poetical than the ballads, and more interesting even than the
romances, are the little lyrics of the period,--those tears and smiles of
long ago that crystallized into poems, to tell us that the hearts of men
are alike in all ages. Of these, the best known are the "Luve Ron" (love
rune or letter) of Thomas de Hales _(c_. 1250); "Springtime" _(c_. 1300),
beginning "Lenten (spring) ys come with luve to toune"; and the melodious
love song "Alysoun," written at the end of the thirteenth century by some
unknown poet who heralds the coming of Chaucer:

Bytuene Mersh and Averil,
When spray biginneth to springe
The lutel foul[59] hath hire wyl
On hyre lud[60] to synge.
Ich libbe[61] in love longinge
For semlokest[62] of all thinge.
She may me blisse bringe;
Icham[63] in hire baundoun.[64]