her gowns, white and grey, the white for his under-robe, the
grey for an upper. He cut the sleeves off the grey, and took
a hood of his father's for head-dress. His sister did not like
either his strange attire or the way it was procured. Indeed
she thought he had gone mad, and loudly protested as much,
and possibly her outcry helped to drive him from home. Some
friends, the Dalton's, had a house not far away, and to them
he betook himself. It was the Eve of the Assumption, and
the family were at church, and the strange boyish apparition
in grey-and-white made its way into their pew. They received
him, thank to the understanding of Lady Dalton, with the
one form of hospitality which mattered to him. He had been
quite satisfied to hide himself in an outhouse; and a cell or
lodging was assigned to him; and when the spirit moved him,
the boyish hermit was even allowed to go up into the pulpit
and preach, and he did so with a fervour that told his grace
was from Heaven. There is an impulsiveness about these
first adventures of Richard Rolle, which one finds reflected
in his hymns and songs, written with quickening beat and at
times with almost excessive fervour.

"Love is a light burthen; Love gladdens young and old.
Love is without-en pine; as lovers have me told;
Love is a ghostly wine, that makes men big and bold
Of love shall he nothing ty ne, that it in heart will hold

Love is the sweetest thing, that man in earth has ta'en,
Love is God's darling, Love bind(e)s blood and bane
In Love be our liking; I wot no better wane ¹
For me and my Loving, Love makes both be ane."

The melody here proves to be, as you will see on examination,
a curious impulsive adaptation of the old English transliterative
double rhythm, elaborately rhymed; the rhymes being added
both at the line-break and the line-end. It stamps Rolle of
Hampole at once as a continuer of the northern tradition,
and a writer with an ear finely susceptible to the new music.

For further comparison take two stanzas of a poem, which

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