| |
| THY braes were bonny, 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! | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| He promised me a little page | |
| To squire me to his father’s towers; | |
| He promised me a wedding-ring,— | |
| Now he is wedded to his grave, | |
| Alas, his watery grave, in Yarrow! | 15 |
| |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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; | 25 |
| His little sister weeping walk’d | |
| The green-wood 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, | 30 |
| 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! | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| No other youth shall be my marrow— | |
| I’ll seek thy body in the stream, | |
| —The tear did never leave her cheek, | |
| No other youth became her marrow; | |
| She found his body in the stream, | 45 |
| And now with him she sleeps in Yarrow. | |
| |
