English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Sir Walter Scott
427. The Outlaw
O B
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer-queen.
And as I rode by Dalton-Hall
Beneath the turrets high,
A Maiden on the castle-wall
Was singing merrily:
‘O Brignall Banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I’d rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.’
To leave both tower and town,
Thou first must guess what life lead we
That dwell by dale and down.
And if thou canst that riddle read,
As read full well you may,
As blithe as Queen of May.’
Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I’d rather rove with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.
And by your palfrey good,
I read you for a ranger sworn
To keep the king’s greenwood.’
‘A Ranger, lady, winds his horn,
And ’tis at peep of light;
His blast is heard at merry morn,
And mine at dead of night.’
Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair,
And Greta woods are gay;
I would I were with Edmund there
To reign his Queen of May!
So gallantly you come,
I read you for a bold Dragoon
That lists the tuck of drum.’
‘I list no more the tuck of drum,
No more the trumpet near;
But when the beetle sounds his hum
My comrades take the spear.
And O! though Brignall banks be fair
And Greta woods be gay,
Yet mickle must the maiden dare
Would reign my Queen of May!
A nameless death I’ll die;
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead
Were better mate than I!
And when I’m with my comrades met
Beneath the greenwood bough,—
What once we were we all forget,
Nor think what we are now.’
‘Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer-queen.’