Giles Collins and Proud Lady Anna
LADY ALICE—B
[_]
Gammer Gurton's Garland, p. 38, ed. 1810.
1
Giles Collins he said to his old mother,
Mother, come bind up my head,
And send to the parson of our parish,
For tomorrow I shall be dead. dead,
For tomorrow I shall be dead.
2
His mother she made him some water-gruel,
And stirrd it round with a spoon;
Giles Collins he ate up his water-gruel,
And died before 'twas noon.
3
Lady Anna was sitting at her window,
Mending her night-robe and coif;
She saw the very prettiest corpse
She'd seen in all her life.
4
‘What bear ye there, ye six strong men,
Upon your shoulders so high?’
‘We bear the body of Giles Collins,
Who for love of you did die.’
5
‘Set him down, set him down,’ Lady Anna she cry'd,
‘On the grass that grows so green;
Tomorrow, before the clock strikes ten,
My body shall lye by hisn.’
6
Lady Anna was buried in the east,
Giles Collins was buried in the west;
There grew a lilly from Giles Collins
That touchd Lady Anna's breast.
7
There blew a cold north-easterly wind,
And cut this lilly in twain,
Which never there was seen before,
And it never will again.
