Dark shall the night be round the byre,
And dark as we drive the brindled kine;
Dark and dark round the beacon-fire,
Dark down in the pass round our wavering line.
Turn on thy path, O fair-foot maiden,
And come our ways by the pathless road;
Look how the clouds hang low and laden
Over the walls of the old abode!
She singeth.
Bare are my feet for the rough waste’s wending,
Wild is the wind, and my kirtle’s thin;
Faint shall I be ere the long way’s ending
Drops down to the Dale and the grief therein.
He singeth.
Do on the brogues of the wild-wood rover,
Do on the byrnies’ ring-close mail;
Take thou the staff that the barbs hang over,
O’er the wind and the waste and the way to prevail.
Come, for how from thee shall I sunder?
Come, that a tale may arise in the land;
Come, that the night may be held for a wonder,
When the Wolf was led by a maiden’s hand!
She singeth.
Now will I fare as ye are faring,
And wend no way but the way ye wend;
And bear but the burdens ye are bearing,
And end the day as ye shall end.
And many an eve when the clouds are drifting
Down through the Dale till they dim the roof,
Shall they tell in the Hall of the Maiden’s Lifting,
And how we drave the spoil aloof.