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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Romantic: The Twa Corbies

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

Ballads

Romantic: The Twa Corbies

  • [An English version makes the lady faithful,—
  • ‘She lifted up his bloody head,
  • And kissed his wounds that were so red;
  • She buried him before the prime,
  • She was dead herself ere evensong time.’]

  • AS I was walking all alane,

    I heard twa corbies making a mane;

    The tane unto the t’other say,

    ‘Where sall we gang and dine to-day?’

    ‘In behint yon auld fail dyke,

    I wot there lies a new-slain knight;

    And nae body kens that he lies there,

    But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

    ‘His hound is to the hunting gane,

    His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame,

    His lady ’s ta’en another mate,

    So we may make our dinner sweet.

    ‘Ye ’ll sit on his white hause bane,

    And I ’ll pike out his bonny blue een:

    Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair,

    We ’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.

    ‘Mony a one for him makes mane,

    But nane sall ken whare he is gane;

    O’er his white banes, when they are bare,

    The wind sall blaw for evermair.’