Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Traditional Ballads

29. Mary Hamilton

WORD’S gane to the kitchen,

And word’s gane to the ha,

That Marie Hamilton has born a bairn

To the hichest Stewart of a’.

She’s tyed it in her apron

And she’s thrown it in the sea;

Says, ‘Sink ye, swim ye, bonny wee babe,

You’ll ne’er get mair o me.’

Down then cam the auld Queen,

Goud tassels tying her hair:

‘O Marie, where’s the bonny wee babe

That I heard greet sae sair?’

‘There was never a babe intill my room,

As little designs to be;

It was but a touch o my sair side,

Came o’er my fair bodie.’

‘O Marie, put on your robes o black,

Or else your robes o brown,

For ye maun gang wi me the night,

To see fair Edinbro town.’

‘I winna put on my robes o black,

Nor yet my robes o brown;

But I’ll put on my robes o white,

To shine through Edinbro town.’

When she gaed up the Cannogate,

She laughd loud laughters three;

But when she cam down the Cannogate

The tear blinded her ee.

When she gaed up the Parliament stair,

The heel cam aff her shee;

And lang or she cam down again

She was condemnd to dee.

When she came down the Cannogate,

The Cannogate sae free,

Many a ladie lookd o’er her window,

Weeping for this ladie.

‘Make never meen for me,’ she says,

‘Make never meen for me;

Seek never grace frae a graceless face,

For that ye’ll never see.

‘Bring me a bottle of wine,’ she says,

‘The best that eer ye hae,’

That I may drink to my weil-wishers,

And they may drink to me.

‘And here’s to the jolly sailor lad

That sails upon the faem;

And let not my father nor mother get wit

But that I shall come again.

‘And here’s to the jolly sailor lad

That sails upon the sea;

But let not my father nor mother get wit

O the death that I maun dee.

‘O little did my mother think,

The day she cradled me,

What lands I was to travel through,

What death I was to dee.

‘O little did my father think,

The day he held up me,

What lands I was to travel through,

What death I was to dee.

‘Last nicht I washd the Queen’s feet,

And gently laid her down;

And a’ the thanks I’ve gotten the nicht

To be hangd in Edinbro town!

‘Last nicht there was four Maries,

The nicht there’ll be but three;

There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beton,

And Marie Carmichael, and me.’