Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury. 1875.

John Logan

CXXVII. The Braes of Yarrow

THY braes were bonnie, Yarrow stream,

When first on them I met my lover;

Thy braes how dreary, Yarrow stream,

When now thy waves his body cover!

For ever now, O Yarrow stream!

Thou art to me a stream of sorrow;

For never on thy banks shall I

Behold my Love, the flower of Yarrow!

He promised me a milk-white steed

To bear me to his father’s bowers;

He promised me a little page

To squire me to his father’s towers;

He promised me a wedding-ring,—

The wedding-day was fix’d to-morrow;—

Now he is wedded to his grave,

Alas, his watery grave, in Yarrow!

Sweet were his words when last we met;

My passion I as freely told him;

Clasp’d in his arms, I little thought

That I should never more behold him!

Scarce was he gone, I saw his ghost;

It vanish’d with a shriek of sorrow;

Thrice did the water-wraith ascend,

And gave a doleful groan thro’ Yarrow.

His mother from the window look’d

With all the longing of a mother;

His little sister weeping walk’d

The greenwood path to meet her brother;

They sought him east, they sought him west,

They sought him all the forest thorough;

They only saw the cloud of night,

They only heard the roar of Yarrow.

No longer from thy window look;

Thou hast no son, thou tender mother!

No longer walk, thou lovely maid;

Alas, thou hast no more a brother!

No longer seek him east or west,

And search no more the forest thorough;

For, wandering in the night so dark,

He fell a lifeless corpse in Yarrow.

The tear shall never leave my cheek,

No other youth shall be my marrow;

I’ll seek thy body in the stream,

And then with thee I’ll sleep in Yarrow.

—The tear did never leave her cheek,

No other youth became her marrow;

She found his body in the stream,

And now with him she sleeps in Yarrow.