XVII.
THE LADY TURNED SERVING-MAN
Is given from a written copy, containing some improvements (perhaps modern ones), upon the popular ballad, intitled, The famous flower of Serving-men: or the Lady turned Serving-man.
[It is printed in the Collection of Old Ballads (i. 216) without the improvements. After verse 56 the first person is changed to the third in the original, but Percy altered this and made the first person run on throughout. Kinloch (Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 95) gives a very mutilated and varied version of this ballad in the Scottish dress under the title of Sweet Willie, which was taken down from the recitation of an old woman in Lanark. There is a similar story in Swedish and Danish.]
You beauteous ladyes, great and small,
I write unto you one and all,
Whereby that you may understand
What I have suffered in the land.
I was by birth a lady faire, 5
An ancient barons only heire,
And when my good old father dyed,
Then I became a young knightes bride.
And there my love built me a bower,
Bedeck'd with many a fragrant flower; 10
A braver bower you ne'er did see
Then my true-love did build for mee.