By the Well of Loneliness I sit and make my moan;
I hear no sound in the depths below from the fall of the dropping stone;
I see the cold wide world, but my lad I do not see,
Your shadow no longer lying between God and me.
The colour of the blackberry is my old lover's colour;
Or the colour of the raspberry on a bright day of summer;
Or the colour of the heathberry where the bog-grass is rarest—
Ah! the blackest head is often on the form that's fairest.
I heard the dog speak of you last night and the sun gone down,
I heard the snipe calling aloud from the marshlands brown;
It is you are the lonely bird flitting from tree to tree—
May you never find your mate if you find not me!
It is time for me to leave this cruel town behind,
The stones are sharp in it, the very mould unkind;
The voice of blame is heard like the muttering of the sea—
The heavy hand of the band of men backbiting me.
I denounce love; she who gave it to him is now all undone;
Little he understood, yon black mother's son.
That my heart is turned to stone, what mattered that to you?
What were you caring for, but to get a cow or two?
FOOTNOTES:
[116] This line is not in the original.