He pass’d the court-gate, and he oped the tower-grate, And he mounted the narrow stair, To the bartizan seat, where, with maids that on her wait, He found his lady fair.
That lady sat in mournful mood; Look’d over hill and vale; Over Tweed’s fair flood, and Mertoun’s wood, And all down Teviotdale.
‘Now hail, now hail, thou lady bright!’ ‘Now hail, thou Baron true! What news, what news, from Ancram fight? What news from the bold Buccleuch?’
‘The Ancram moor is red with gore, For many a southern fell; And Buccleuch has charged us, evermore, To watch our beacons well.’
The lady blush’d red, but nothing she said; Nor added the Baron a word: Then she stepp’d down the stair to her chamber fair, And so did her moody lord.
In sleep the lady mourn’d, and the Baron toss’d and turn’d, And oft to himself he said— ‘The worms around him creep, and his bloody grave deep ... It cannot give up the dead!’—
It was near the ringing of matin-bell, The night was well nigh done, When a heavy sleep on that Baron fell, On the eve of good St. John.
The lady look’d through the chamber fair, By the light of a dying flame; And she was aware of a knight stood there— Sir Richard of Coldinghame!
‘Alas! away, away!’ she cried, For the holy Virgin’s sake!’— ‘Lady, I know who sleeps by thy side; But, lady, he will not awake.
‘By Eildon tree, for long nights three, In bloody grave have I lain; The mass and the death-prayer are said for me, But, lady, they are said in vain.