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My love she wears a cotton plaid,
A bonnet of the straw;
Her cheeks are leaves of roses spread,
Her lips are like the haw.
In truth she is as sweet a maid
As true love ever saw.
...

How beautiful the summer night
When birds roost on the mossy tree,
When moon and stars are shining bright
And home has gone the weary bee!
Then Mary Bayfield seeks the glen,...

They'd parted but a year before, she never thought he'd come,
She stammer'd, blushed, held out her hand, and called him 'Mister Gum.'
How could he know that all the while she longed to murmur 'John.'...

Sweet Summer, breathe your softest gales
To charm my lover's ear:
Ye zephyrs, tell your choicest tales
Where'er she shall appear;
And gently wave the meadow grass
Where soft she sets her feet,...

From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails,
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's intervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam and flow,...

The captain, some time after his return, being retired to Mr Sympson's in the country, Mrs Gulliver, apprehending from his late behaviour some estrangement of his affections, writes him the following expostulatory, soothing, an...

Mary had a little frog
And it was water-soaked,
But Mary did not keep it long
Because, of course, it croaked!

The Text given here is from Sharpe's Ballad Book (1824). Professor Child collected and printed some twenty-eight variants and fragments, of which none is entirely satisfactory, as regards the telling of the story. The present t...

When aw cooarted Mary Hanner,
Aw wor young an varry shy;
An shoo used to play th' peanner
Wol aw sheepishly sat by.
Aw lang'd to tell her summat,
But aw railly hadn't th' pluck,...

"He will come to night," young Mary said,
And checked the rising sigh;
And gazed on the stars that o'er her head
Shone out in the deep blue sky.
"Heaven speed his voyage!--though absent long,...

She is the sky of the sun,
She is the dart
Of love,
She is the love of my heart,
She is a rune,
She is above
The women of the race of Eve
As the sun is above the moon.
...

One Easter Mundy, for a spree,
To Bradforth, Mary Jane an me,
Decided we wod tak a jaunt,
An have a dinner wi mi hont;
For Mary Jane, aw'd have yo know,
Had promised me, some time ago,...

Jim Duff was a 'native,'as wild as could be;
A stealer and duffer of cattle was he,
But back in his youth he had stolen a pearl
Or a diamond rather the heart of a girl;...

Before Vittoria, June 20, 1813


O Mary Leslie, blithe and shrill
The bugles blew for Spain:
And you below the Castle Hill
Stood in the crowd your lane.
Then hearts were wild to watch us pass,...

O eyes that strip the souls of men!
There came to me the Magdalen.
Her blue robe with a cord was bound,
Her hair with Lenten lilies crowned.
"Arise," she said "God calls for thee,...

A SONG FOR ALL MARIES.


Our Master lies asleep and is at rest;
His Heart has ceased to bleed, His Eye to weep.
The sun ashamed has dropt down in the west;
Our Master lies asleep.
...

Blessed, yet sinful one, and broken-hearted!
The crowd are pointing at the thing forlorn,
In wonder and in scorn!
Thou weepest days of innocence departed;
Thou weepest, and thy tears have power to move...

Passer-By,
To love is to find your own soul
Through the soul of the beloved one.
When the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul
Then you have lost your soul.
It is written: "l have a friend,...

Mary Mecca,(1) Mary Mecca,
I'm fain to see thee here,
A Devon lass to fill my glass
O' home-brewed Yorkshire beer.
I awlus said that foreigners
Sud niver mel on me;
But sike a viewly face as thine...

Tune - "Bide ye yet."



I.

O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see
That make the miser's treasure poor:...