“There’s a merry bird in the garden green
That lilts the livelong day;
And aye the ower-word of his song
Is the name I must not say!
“Oh, pride of youth, and high heart’s truth,
Were all too light a fee,
And the bitter tears of years on years,
To win his heart to me!”
The queen has mounted her palfry white,
And called her trusty page—
And she’s away o’er moss and moor
To the hold of Hermitage!
Note.—The vault referred to in this ballad is that beneath the castle of Hermitage in which the “Wicked Lord Soulis” practised his sorceries—the custody of which, at his execution, he committed to Redcap, his familiar demon. By the time (some three centuries later) that Bothwell, as Warden of the Marches, took up residence at Hermitage, I have ventured to suppose that the vault (always looked on with horror) might have become ruinous.
THE RIDING OF THE SHEE[B]
A BALLAD OF PRINCE CHARLIE
September 1745
They’ve stabled their steeds where the heather grows high
And the deer has ranging-room;
The prince has laid him down to rest
All under a bush of broom.
There was a breeze in the whispering fern,
And a star that danced in the stream,
When the Men of Peace came riding by
Betwixt a dream and a dream.
In mantle of green, on coal-black steed,
They passed, and he saw them plain;
Out of the mist or ever he wist,
And into the mist again.
(’Twixt Beltane fire and Hallow-e’en
Men that have sight may
The hosts who pass, nor stir the grass—
The riding of the Shee.)