Each night, each night, as on my bed I lie,

I do not sleep, but turn myself and cry.

I do not sleep, but turn myself and weep,

When I think of her I love so deep.

Each day I seek the Wood of Love so dear,

In hopes to see you at its streamlet clear.

When I see you come through the forest grove,

On its leaves I write the secrets of my love.

—But a fragile trust are the forest leaves,

To hold the secrets close which their page receives.

When comes the storm of rain, and gusty air,

Your secrets close are scattered everywhere.

'T were safer far, young clerk, on my heart to write.

Graven deep they'd rest, and never take their flight.

The amatory folk-songs of Brittany have their peculiar images and phrases, like those of all other countries, and which are repeated without variation as almost essential characteristics. The reader of Scottish ballads knows how invariably the recipient of a letter first smiles and then has his eyes blinded by tears, and recalls the constant repetition of familiar images and descriptions. So in the Breton folk-songs the lover constantly declares that he has worn out three pairs of sabots in coming to see her without being able to find out her thought, and that he has watched in the wind and rain through the night with no consolation but the sound of her soft breathing through the key-hole of the door; to which the cruel or coquettish damsel replies that she has no objection to tell him her thought, which is that he should buy a new pair of shoes, or that he should take himself home as soon as possible. The piece entitled In the White Cabin at the Foot of the Mountain is a characteristic specimen of these songs, whose effect of simplicity can only be retained by an absolutely literal translation: —

In the white cabin at the foot of the mountain

Is my sweet, my love.

Is my love, is my desire,

And all my happiness.

Before the night I must see her

Or my little heart will break.

My little heart will not break

For my lovely dear I have seen.

Fifty night I have been

At the threshold of her door; she did not know it.

The rain and the wind whipped me,

Until my garments dripped.

Nothing came to console me

Except the sound of breathing from her bed.

Except the sound of breathing from her bed,

Which came through the little hole for the key.

Three pairs of shoes I have worn out,

Her thought I do not know.

The fourth pair I have begun to wear,

Her thought I do not know.

Five pairs, alas, in good count,

Her thought I do not know.

—If it is my thought you wish to know,

It is not I, who will make a mystery of it.

There are three roads on each side of my house,

Choose one among them.

Choose whichever you like among them,

Provided it will take you far from here.

—More is worth love, since it pleases me,

Than wealth with which I do not know what to do.

Wealth comes, and wealth it goes away,

Wealth serves for nothing.

Wealth passes like the yellow pears:

Love endures for ever.

More is worth a handful of love

Than an oven full of gold and silver.

Another form of the love song than the melancholy apostrophe to the mistress, and the simple moralizing which accompanies it, is the gay chant, which was composed to the dance measures played by the biniou and the bombarde at the village fÊtes, and which was sung in accord with them. On these occasions, which were chiefly the Pardons, or gatherings to celebrate the days of the Patron Saints, when the religious exercises are concluded, the young men engage in athletic competition, wrestling and jumping for prizes under the eyes of their sweethearts, and the festivities wind up with dancing on the green, and the scene is as gay as if it had no connection with religion. Every Breton story teller, and every writer on the life and customs of Brittany, has delighted to depict these scenes, which are the rendezvous of youthful lovers and the embodiment of vigorous and healthy gayety, with all the picturesqueness of country life and color. The element of these dance songs is their lively and strongly accented melody to accompany the dancing air and illustrate the movements, as in the following specimen:—

Sunday I have seen,

Sunday I will see,

Three of my young lovers,

Who 'll come and dance with me.

Dance between the two,

And pass before them gay,

Dance between the three,

And wave them all away.

Press the foot of that;

And wink the eye at this;

Mock the other's pride;

There is no greater bliss.

When you come to call,

Pray let me know the hour;

I will grease my cakes

And put eggs in the flour.

I will oil the door;

The hinges will not creak;

In the closet bed

I 'll lie, and will not speak.

Come not through the yard,

My flowers you will tread,

My onions, and my cress,

My peas and berries red.

Throw straw upon the fire

To show your darling head.

It might be expected that in a country so much under the influence of the sea, and in which so large a proportion of the inhabitants are sailors, fishers on the stormy and dangerous coast or in the distant waters of Newfoundland and Iceland, there would be a large number of sea songs. The folk-lore of Brittany is particularly rich in stories and legends of the sea, composed by the fishermen to while away the long hours of the passage to Newfoundland or the nightwatches in the misty seas of Iceland; or embodying the mysterious and superstitious terrors of the fishermen of the coast in the face of storms and foaming reefs; and the impress of supernatural power in the ocean and the storm is very strong upon the imaginations of the Breton people. But the sailors themselves, like the laborers in the fields, do not seem to have the inspiration and poetical gift to put their thoughts into song. M. Luzel has been able to collect but a comparatively few of genuine sailor songs, and these are mostly tavern choruses or rude and commonplace chants, with but very little of the salt of the seas and the voice of the breeze in them. The women sometimes chant at the spinning-wheel songs of warning against the dangers and perils of becoming a sailor's wife, of which the following is an example:—