The following poem, written anonymously and titled simply as ‘Robin Hood’, appeared in The Oriental Observer and Literary Chronicle in 1828.

The newspaper, printed in Calcutta during the rule of the East India Company, went through a number of name changes during its run (which was not unusual for a newspaper at this time). Its alternative names were:

• Oriental Observer. 
• Oriental Literary Observer.
• Oriental Observer.
• Oriental Observer and Literary Chronicle.

As some of the names indicate, the paper had a literary focus and often published anonymous pieces of poetry.

‘Tis merry, ‘tis merry, in green Sherwood,

To wind the horn,

When breaks the morn,

O’er the leafy bed of bold Robin Hood.

And the welkin sounds,

And the roebuck bounds,

Through copse, and fallow, and brake, and flood.

The chase is o’er, the merry men all

In their Lincoln green,

Are gather’d at e’en,

To tell of the gallant roe-buck’s fall:

And the bowl is crown’d,

And the toast goes round,

To the grey goose shaft and the bugle call.

‘Robin Hood’, The Oriental Observer, 3 February 1828, p. 407.