Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Sir Walter Scott. 17711832543. Brignall Banks
O, BRIGNALL banks are wild and fair, | ||
And Greta woods are green, | ||
And you may gather garlands there, | ||
Would grace a summer queen: | ||
And as I rode by Dalton Hall, | 5 | |
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! | 10 | |
I’d rather rove with Edmund there | ||
Than reign our English Queen.’ | ||
‘If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me | ||
To leave both tower and town, | ||
Thou first must guess what life lead we, | 15 | |
That dwell by dale and down: | ||
And if thou canst that riddle read, | ||
As read full well you may, | ||
Then to the green-wood shalt thou speed | ||
As blithe as Queen of May.’ | 20 | |
Yet sung she, ‘Brignall banks are fair, | ||
And Greta woods are green! | ||
I’d rather rove with Edmund there | ||
Than reign our English Queen. | ||
‘I read you by your bugle horn | 25 | |
And by your palfrey good, | ||
I read you for a Ranger sworn | ||
To keep the King’s green-wood.’ | ||
‘A Ranger, Lady, winds his horn, | ||
And ’tis at peep of light; | 30 | |
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, | 35 | |
To reign his Queen of May! | ||
‘With burnish’d brand and musketoon | ||
So gallantly you come, | ||
I read you for a bold Dragoon, | ||
That lists the tuck of drum.’ | 40 | |
‘I list no more the tuck of drum, | ||
No more the trumpet hear; | ||
But when the beetle sounds his hum, | ||
My comrades take the spear. | ||
‘And O! though Brignall banks be fair, | 45 | |
And Greta woods be gay, | ||
Yet mickle must the maiden dare, | ||
Would reign my Queen of May! | ||
‘Maiden! a nameless life I lead, | ||
A nameless death I’ll die; | 50 | |
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead | ||
Were better mate than I! | ||
And when I’m with my comrades met | ||
Beneath the green-wood bough, | ||
What once we were we all forget, | 55 | |
Nor think what we are now.’ | ||
Chorus. | Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, | |
And Greta woods are green, | ||
And you may gather flowers there | ||
Would grace a summer queen. | 60 |