William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
The Outlaws SongJoanna Baillie (17621851)
T
The owl sits on the tree,
The hush’d wind wails with feeble moan,
Like infant charity.
The wild-fire dances on the fen,
The red star shades its ray;
Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
It is our opening day.
And closed is every flower,
And winking tapers faintly peep
High from my lady’s bower;
Bewilder’d hinds with shorten’d ken
Shrink on their murky way;
Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
It is our opening day.
Nor roof nor latchèd door,
Nor kind mate, bound by holy vow
To bless a good man’s store;
Noon lulls us in a gloomy den,
And night is grown our day;
Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
And use it as ye may.