Explore "Peasant Songs of Spain" by George Borrow on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ 1. / When Jesu our Redeemer / To him the twelve did call, / By threes and fours he called them, / Till they were mustered all.
And when they all were mustered, / 'Twas thus to them he spake: / "O which of ye, my children, / Will perish for my sake?"
Then, gazing on each other, / They stood abashed and still; / All save Saint John the Baptist, / And Peter of the Hill.
"We'll die for thee, O Jesus, / Upon to-morrow's morn." / For him died John the Baptist, / And suffered pain and scorn.
2. / There stands a stone, a rounded stone, / 'Midst ocean's surges hoary, / On which sweet Jesus set his foot / When mounting to his glory.
There grows a rose, a blooming rose, / 'Midst ocean's briny waters, / That o'er may pass, to hear the mass, / Havanah's dusky daughters.
{22} An earlier, and utterly different, version of this ballad was / printed in "Romantic Ballads", 1826, pp. 37–39. Borrow afterwards / described this earlier version as "a paraphrase."