Читать книгу A Book of Old Ballads — Complete - Various - Страница 6

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This is really such an important point that it is worth labouring.

Why is ballad-making a lost art? That it is a lost art there can be no question. Nobody who is painfully acquainted with the rambling, egotistical pieces of dreary versification, passing for modern "ballads", will deny it.

Ballad-making is a lost art for a very simple reason. Which is, that we

are all, nowadays, too sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought to

receive emotions directly, without self-consciousness. If we are

wounded, we are no longer able to sing a song about a clean sword, and a

great cause, and a black enemy, and a waving flag. No--we must needs go

into long descriptions of our pain, and abstruse calculations about its

effect upon our souls.

It is not "we" who have changed. It is life that has changed. "We" are

still men, with the same legs, arms and eyes as our ancestors. But life

has so twisted things that there are no longer any clean swords nor

great causes, nor black enemies. And the flags do not know which way to

flutter, so contrary are the winds of the modern world. All is doubt.

And doubt's colour is grey.

Grey is no colour for a ballad. Ballads are woven from stuff of

primitive hue … the red blood gushing, the gold sun shining, the green

grass growing, the white snow falling. Never will you find grey in a

ballad. You will find the black of the night and the raven's wing,

and the silver of a thousand stars. You will find the blue of many

summer skies. But you will not find grey.