Mirie it is, while sumer ilast,
With fugheles song.
Oc nu necheth wides blast,
And weder strong.
Ey! Ey! what this night is long!
And ich, with well michel wrong,
Soregh and murne and fast.

(Modern English Translation:
It is pleasant, while summer lasts, with the birds' song. But now, the storming wind comes on, and severe weather. Alas! how long this night is, and I, because of very great wrong, grieve, and mourn and fast.)

abc | midi | pdf

---

Source: Medieval English Songs, E.J.Dobson and F.Ll.Harrison, 1979

Notes:
Notes taken from "Medieval English Lyrics - A Critical Anthology" by R.T. Davies, Faber and Faber, ISBN 0 571 06571 6.

... All three [versions of the poem] are accompanied by music, but it is not the music of simple, rustic folk.
The music: New Oxford history of music. ii: Early medieval music up to 1300, ed. Dom A. Hughes (London, 1954): Giraldus Cambrensis (12c) reports there was a long tradition of singing in many parts of Wales and in two parts in England, north of the Humber: Descripto Cambriae, ed J.F. Dimock (Rolls Series 1868), p 189. This poem is written on a sheet that has later bound up as a fly-sheet in another MS.

Index 2163. Bodl. Ms. Rawlingson G, 22(14755), f. 1b. C.B. 13c, p. 14, no 7; E.E.L., p. 3, no 1; E.M.E.T., p 118, no 25.

C.B. 13c denotes "English Lyrics of the thirteenth century", ed C. Brown (Oxford, 1932).
E.E.L. is "Early English Lyrics, amorous, divine, moral and trivial", ed. E. K. Chambers and F. Sedgewick (London, 1907)
E.M.E.T is "Early Middle English Texts", ed. B Dickins and R. M. Wilson (Cambridge, 1951).

Roud:
Laws:
Child: