Pluck the finest flower of them all,
‘Twill wither to a stalk.’
‘Go fetch me a nut from a dungeon deep,
And water from a stone,
And white milk from a maiden’s breast
[That babe bare never none].’
G
From the singing of a wandering minstrel and story-teller of the parish of Cury, Cornwall. After the last stanza followed “a stormy kind of duet between the maiden and her lover’s ghost, who tries to persuade the maid to accompany him to the world of shadows.” Hunt, Popular Romances of the West of England, First Series, 1865, p. xvi.
1
‘Cold blows the wind to-day, sweetheart,