| |
| O WHERE 1 have you been, my long, long love, | |
| This long seven years and mair?’ | |
| ‘O I’m come back to seek my former vows | |
| Ye granted me before.’ | |
| |
| ‘O hold your tongue of your former vows, | 5 |
| 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: | 10 |
| ‘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, | 15 |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| ‘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— | 25 |
| 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, | |
| Kiss’d them baith cheek and chin: | 30 |
| ‘O fair ye weel, my ain two 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, | 35 |
| And the masts o’ the beaten gold. | |
| |
| She had not sail’d a league, a league, | |
| A league but barely three, | |
| When dismal grew his countenance, | |
| And drumlie grew his e’e. | 40 |
| |
| The masts that were like the beaten gold, | |
| Bent not on the heaving seas; | |
| The sails that were o’ the taffetie | |
| Fill’d not in the east land breeze. | |
| |
| They had not sailed a league, a league, | 45 |
| A league but barely three, | |
| Until she espied his cloven foot, | |
| And she wept right bitterlie. | |
| |
| ‘O hold your tongue of your weeping,’ says he, | |
| ‘Of your weeping now let me be; | 50 |
| I will shew 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, | 55 |
| ‘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.’ | 60 |
| |
| And aye when she turn’d her round about, | |
| Aye taller he seemed for to be; | |
| Until that the tops o’ that gallant ship | |
| Nae taller were than he. | |
| |
| The clouds grew dark, and the wind grew loud, | 65 |
| And the levin fill’d her e’e; | |
| And waesome wail’d the snaw-white sprites | |
| Upon the gurlie sea. | |
| |
| He strack the tapmast wi’ his hand, | |
| The foremast wi’ his knee; | 70 |
| And he brak that gallant ship in twain, | |
| And sank her in the sea. | |
