Where milk-maid's merry song
Had often charm'd her lover's ear,
Who blest her silv'ry tongue.
But Mary miss'd the woodland stile—
The hedge-row was not high;
She gain'd its prickly top, and now
Her murderers were nigh.
A slender tree her fingers caught—
It bent beneath her weight;
'Twas false as love and Mary's fate!