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"Woe worth, woe worth ye, Jock,

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I paid ye well your fee;

Why pull ye out the grund-wa' stone,
Lets in the reek to me?

"And e'en woe worth ye,

Jock, my

man!

I paid ye well your hire;

Why pull ye out the grund-wa' stone,
To me lets in the fire?"

"Ye paid me well my hire, ladye, Ye paid me well my fee;

But now I'm Adam o' Gordon's man,

Must either do or dee."

Oh, then bespake her little son,

Sat on the nurse's knee;

Says, "O mither dear, give o'er this house! For the reek it smothers me."

"I winna give up my house, my dear,
To no sic traitor as he:

Come weal, come woe, my jewel fair,
Ye maun take share with me."

Oh, then bespake her daughter dear,
She was both jimp and small:
"Oh, row me in a pair of sheets,
And tow me o'er the wall!"

They rowed her in a pair of sheets,
And towed her o'er the wall;

ADAM O' GORDON

But on the point of Gordon's spear
She gat a deadly fall.

Oh, bonnie, bonnie was her mouth,
And cherry were her cheeks,
And clear, clear was her yellow hair,
Whereon the red blood dreeps!

Then with his spear he turned her o'er;
Oh, gin her face was wan!

He said, "Ye are the first that e'er
I wished alive again.

"Busk and boun, my merry men all,

For ill dooms I do guess;

I cannot look on that bonnie face
As it lies on the grass."

But when the ladye saw the fire
Come flaming o'er her head,

She wept, and kissed her children twain,
Says, "Bairns, we be but dead."

Oh, this way looked her own dear lord,
As he came o'er the lea;

He saw his castle all in a lowe,
So far as he could see.

"Put on, put on, my mighty men,
As fast as ye can dri'e!

For he that's hindmost of the thrang
Shall ne'er get good of me!"

85

Then some they rade, and some they ran,

Out o'er the grass and bent;

But ere the foremost could win up,

Both lady and babes were brent.

And after the Gordon he is gane,
Sae fast as he might dri'e;

And soon i' the Gordon's foul heart's blood
He's wroken his fair ladye.

Unknown.

ARIEL'S SONGS

WHERE the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie ;

There I couch when owls do cry:

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough!

COME unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have, and kissed,

(The wild waves whist)

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet Sprites, the burthen bear.

Hark, hark!

Bow-wow.

The watchdogs bark:

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

Bow-wow.

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticleer

Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

Shakespeare.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

Oh, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! Oh, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

Alfred Tennyson.

87

SHAMEFUL DEATH

THERE were four of us about that bed;
The mass-priest knelt at the side,
I and his mother stood at the head,
Over his feet lay the bride;
We were quite sure that he was dead,
Though his eyes were open wide.

He did not die in the night,
He did not die in the day,
But in the morning twilight
His spirit passed away;

When neither sun nor moon was bright,
And the trees were merely gray.

He was not slain with the sword,

Knight's axe, or the knightly spear,

Yet spoke he never a word

After he came in here;

I cut away the cord

From the neck of my brother dear.

He did not strike one blow,

For the recreants came behind,

In a place where the hornbeams grow,
A path right hard to find,
For the hornbeam boughs swing so

That the twilight makes it blind.

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