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pinions gray,” and bids it carry it to his sweetheart in the south, 
to whom the bird is thus directed— 
O well shall ye my true love ken, 
As soon as her ye see, 
For of a’ the flowers of fair England, 
The fairest flower is she. 
The red that’s on my true love’s cheek 
Is like blood-drops on the snaw, 
The white that is on her breast bare, 
Like the down of the white sea-maw. 
And ever at my love’s bower door, 
There grows a flowering birk, 
And ye maun sit and sing thereon, 
As she gangs to the kirk. 
The bird goes on its errand— 
And first he sings a low, low note, 
And syne he sang a clear, 
And aye the o’erword of the song 
Was—your love can no win here. 
The lady listens and understands, I need hardly say—I fear her 
thoughts wandered a little during the service—but, unfortunately, 
she has a step-mother, who by no means gives her the encourage- 
ment she would have liked. She adopts a stratagem to deceive 
her. She drinks a sleeping potion, and lies apparently dead, 
having first obtained a promise from her father that if she dies she 
shall be buried in the north countrie, and allowed to be laid out. 
the night before the burial in S. Mary’s Kirk. Her step-mother, 
however, suspects her, and subjects her to a rigid test— 
Then spake her cruel step-mother, 
‘*Take ye the burning lead, 
And drap a drap on her bosom, 
To see if she be dead.” 
They took a drap of boiling lead, 
And drapp’d it on her breast ; 
‘© Alas! alas !”’ her father cried, 
‘*She’s dead without a priest !” 
7 
