"And I heard her name the midnight hour,
"And name this holy eve;
"And say, 'Come this night to thy lady's bower;
"Ask no bold Baron's leave.
'He lifts his spear with the bold Buccleuch;
'His lady is all alone;
'The door she'll undo, to her knight so true,
'On the eve of good St John.'
'I cannot come; I must not come;
'I dare not come to thee;
'On the eve of St John I must wander alone:
'In thy bower I may not be.'
'Now, out on thee, faint-hearted knight!
'Thou should'st not say me nay;
'For the eve is sweet, and when lovers meet,
'Is worth the whole summer's day.'
'And I'll chain the blood-hound, and the warder shall not sound,
'And rushes shall be strewed on the stair;
"So, by the black rood-stone,[57] and by holy St John,
'I conjure thee, my love, to be there!'
'Though the blood-hound be mute, and the rush beneath my foot,
'And the warder his bugle should not blow,
'Yet there sleepeth a priest in the chamber to the east,
'And my foot-step he would know.'
'O fear not the priest, who sleepeth to the east!
"For to Dryburgh[58] the way he has ta'en;
'And there to say mass, till three days do pass,
"For the soul of a knight that is slayne.'
"He turn'd him around, and grimly he frown'd;
"Then he laughed right scornfully—
'He who says the mass-rite for the soul of that knight,
'May as well say mass for me.
'At the lone midnight-hour, when bad spirits have power,
'In thy chamber will I be.'
"With that he was gone, and my lady left alone,
"And no more did I see."—
Then changed, I trow, was that bold Baron's brow,
From the dark to the blood-red high;
"Now, tell me the mien of the knight thou hast seen,
"For, by Mary, he shall die!"