154. Lady Alice

LADY ALICE was sitting in her bower-window,

Mending her midnight quoif,

And there she saw as fine a corpse

As ever she saw in her life.

‘What bear ye, what bear ye, ye six men tall?

What bear ye on your shouldèrs?’—

‘We bear the corpse of Giles Collins,

An old and true lover of yours.’—

III

‘O lay him down gently, ye six men tall,

All on the grass so green,

And to-morrow, when the sun goes down,

Lady Alice a corpse shall be seen.

‘And bury me in Saint Mary’s church,

All for my love so true,

And make me a garland of marjoram,

And of lemon-thyme, and rue.’

Giles Collins was buried all in the east,

Lady Alice all in the west,

And the roses that grew on Giles Collins’s grave,

They reached Lady Alice’s breast.

The priest of the parish he chanced to pass,

And he sever’d those roses in twain;

Sure never were seen such true lovers before,

Nor e’er will there be again.