BUSH BALLADS AND RHYMES 



As luck would have it, alone, and late 

 In the night, I rode to the northern gate 



I thought, as I pass'd through the moonlit 

 park, 

 On the boyish days I used to spend 

 In the halls of the knight lying stiff and 

 stark — 

 Thought on his lady, my father's friend 

 (Mine, too, in spite of my sinister bar, 



But with that my story has nought to do) — 

 She died the winter before the war — 



Died giving birth to the baby Hugh. 

 He pass'd ere the green leaves clothed the 



bough, 

 And the orphan girl was the heiress now. 



When I was a rude and a reckless boy. 

 And she a brave and a beautiful child, 



I was her page, her playmate, her toy — 

 I have crown'd her hair with the field-flowers 

 wild, 



Cowslip and crowfoot, and coltsfoot bright — 

 I have carried her miles when the woods 



were wet, 



262 



