Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 7, 1802; III, 151, 1833.
1 'O waly, waly, my gay goss-hawk,
Gin your feathering be sheen!'
'And waly, waly, my master dear,
Gin ye look pale and lean!
2 'O have ye tint at tournament
Your sword, or yet your spear?
Or mourn ye for the southern lass,
Whom you may not win near?'
3 'I have not tint at tournament
My sword, nor yet my spear,
But sair I mourn for my true-love,
Wi mony a bitter tear.
4 'But weel's me on ye, my gay goss-hawk,
Ye can baith speak and flee;
Ye sall carry a letter to my love,
Bring an answer back to me.'
5 'But how sall I your true-love find,
Or how suld I her know?
I bear a tongue neer wi her spake,
An eye that neer her saw.'
6 'O weel sall ye my true-love ken,
Sae sune as ye her see,
For of a' the flowers of fair England,
The fairest flower is she.
7 'The red that's on my true-love's cheik
Is like blood-drops on the snaw;
The white that is on her breast bare
Like the down o the white sea-maw.
8 'And even at my love's bouer-door
There grows a flowering birk,
And ye maun sit and sing thereon,
As she gangs to the kirk.
9 'And four-and-twenty fair ladyes
Will to the mass repair,
But weel may ye my ladye ken,
The fairest ladye there.'