Lady Alice.
LADY ALICE—A
[_]
a. Bell's Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry
of England, p. 127, a stall copy. b. Edward Hawkins,
in Notes and Queries, Second Series, I, 418. c. Notes and
Queries, Second Series, I, 354, as heard sung forty years
before 1856, “Uneda,” Philadelphia.
1
Lady Alice was sitting in her bower-window,
Mending her midnight quoif,
And there she saw as fine a corpse
As ever she saw in her life.
2
‘What bear ye, what bear ye, ye six men tall?
What bear ye on your shoulders?’
‘We bear the corpse of Giles Collins,
An old and true lover of yours.’
3
‘O lay him down gently, ye six men tall,
All on the grass so green,
And tomorrow, when the sun goes down,
Lady Alice a corpse shall be seen.
4
‘And bury me in Saint Mary's church,
All for my love so true,
And make me a garland of marjoram,
And of lemon-thyme, and rue.’
5
Giles Collins was buried all in the east,
Lady Alice all in the west,
And the roses that grew on Giles Collins's grave,
They reached Lady Alice's breast.
6
The priest of the parish he chanced to pass,
And he severed those roses in twain;
Sure never were seen such true lovers before,
Nor eer will there be again.
