The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

This ballad is published from the collation of two copies, obtained from recitation.  It seems to be the rude original, or perhaps a corrupted and imperfect copy, of The Child of Elle, a beautiful legendary tale, published in the Reliques of Ancient Poetry.  It is singular, that this charming ballad should have been translated, or imitated, by the celebrated Bürger, without acknowledgment of the English original.  As The Child of Elle avowedly received corrections, we may ascribe its greatest beauties to the poetical taste of the ingenious editor.  They are in the truest stile of Gothic embellishment.  We may compare, for example, the following beautiful verse, with the same idea in an old romance: 

  The baron stroked his dark-brown cheek,
    And turned his face aside,
  To wipe away the starting tear,
    He proudly strove to hide!
      Child of Elle.

The heathen Soldan, or Amiral, when about to slay two lovers, relents in a similar manner: 

  Weeping, he turned his heued awai,
  And his swerde hit fel to grounde.
      Florice and Blauncheflour.