Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
YE banks and braes and streams around | |
The castle o’ Montgomery, | |
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, | |
Your waters never drumlie! | |
There simmer first unfauld her robes, | 5 |
And there the langest tarry; | |
For there I took the last fareweel | |
O’ my sweet Highland Mary. | |
|
How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk, | |
How rich the hawthorn’s blossom, | 10 |
As underneath their fragrant shade | |
I clasp’d her to my bosom! | |
The golden hours on angel wings | |
Flew o’er me and my dearie; | |
For dear to me as light and life | 15 |
Was my sweet Highland Mary. | |
|
Wi’ monie a vow and lock’d embrace | |
Our parting was fu’ tender; | |
And, pledging aft to meet again, | |
We tore oursels asunder; | 20 |
But oh! fell Death’s untimely frost, | |
That nipt my flower sae early! | |
Now green ‘s the sod, and cauld ‘s the clay, | |
That wraps my Highland Mary! | |
|
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips | 25 |
I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly! | |
And closed for aye the sparkling glance | |
That dwelt on me sae kindly! | |
|
And mouldering now in silent dust | |
That heart that lo’ed me dearly! | 30 |
But still within my bosom’s core | |
Shall live my Highland Mary. | |