  ‘O where have you been, my long, long love, This long seven years and mair?’ ‘O I’m come to seek my former vows Ye granted me before.’ ‘O hold your tongue of your former vows, For they will breed sad strife; O hold your tongue of your former vows, For I am become a wife.’ He turned him right and round about, And the tear blinded his e’e: ’I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground If it had not been for thee. ‘I might hae had a king’s daughter, Far, far beyond the sea; I might have had a king’s daughter, Had it not been for love o’ thee.’ ‘If ye might have had a king’s daughter, Yer sel ye had to blame; Ye might have taken the king’s daughter, For ye kend that I was nane.’ ‘O faulse are the vows o’ womankind, But fair is their faulse bodie; I never wad hae trodden on Irish ground, Had it not been for love o’ thee.’ ‘If I was to leave my husband dear, And my two babes also, O what have you to take me to, If with you I should go?’ ‘I hae seven ships upon the sea, The eighth brought me to land; With four-and-twenty bold mariners, And music on every hand.’ She has taken up her two little babes, Kissed them baith cheek and chin; ‘O fare ye weel, my ain twa babes, For I’ll never see you again.’ She set her foot upon the ship, No mariners could she behold; But the sails were o’ the taffetie And the masts o’ the beaten gold. She had not sailed a league, a league, A league but barely three, When dismal grew his countenance, And drumlie grew his e’e. The masts, that were like the beaten gold, Bent not on the heaving seas; But the sails, that were o’ the taffetie, Fill’d not in the east land breeze. _ ‘O hold your tongue of your weeping,’ says he, ‘Of your weeping now let me be; I will show you how the lilies grow On the banks of Italy.’ ‘O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills, That the sun shines sweetly on?’ ‘O yon are the hills of heaven,’ he said, ‘Where you will never win.’ ‘O whaten a mountain is yon,’ she said, ‘All so dreary wi’ frost and snow?’ ‘O yon is the mountain of hell,’ he cried, ‘Where you and I will go.’ And aye when she turn’d her round about, Aye taller he seemed to be; Until that the tops o’ the gallant ship Nae taller were than he. The clouds grew dark, and the wind grew loud, And the leven filled her e’e; And waesome wail’d the snow-white sprites Upon the gurlie sea. He strack the tapmast wi’ his hand, The foremast wi’ his knee; And he brake that gallant ship in twain, And sank her in the sea. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. |
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