“Burnt Umber”
Pencil, pastel, and watercolor
1 November 2023
$250 (if interested in purchase, please email dterrydraw@aol.com or private message)
Oh, I was awfully pleased when, this afternoon, this turned out well. I’m hoping it will bring a smile to my jolly friend, Janet Kersey…..out on the west coast (not that there’s much of an East coast) of Cornwall. Friend her on Facebook to see her astoundingly beautiful photographs. Just someday, we might convince her to sell a few of them?….
As for the song? I’ve loved it since I was little and growing up in Tennessee. This is my favorite modern recording of it..go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecvIZ3agcLQ
The lyrics are quite clear in this recording, so here are the original, middle-English lyrics:
“Pax uobis,”quod the ffox,
“for I am comyn to toowne.”
It fell ageyns the next nyght
the fox yede to with all his myghte,
with-outen cole or candelight,
whan that he cam vnto the toowne.
Whan he cam all in the yarde,
soore te geys wer ill a-ferde.
“I shall macke some of yow lerde,
or that I goo from the toowne!”
Whan he cam all in the croofte,
there he stalkyd wundirfull soofte;
“For here haue I be frayed full ofte
whan that I haue come to toowne.”
He hente a goose all be the heye;
fast the goose began to creye;
oowte yede men as they myght heye
and seyde, “Fals fox, ley it doowne!”
“Nay,” he saide, “soo mot I the—
sche shall go unto the wode with me,
sche and I vnther a tre,
e-mange the beryis browne.
I haue a wyf, and sche lyethe seke;
many smale whelppis sche haue to eke;
many bonys they must pike
will they ley adowne!”