Читать книгу English and Scottish Ballads (Vol. 1-8) - Various Authors - Страница 151

O! sweetest sweet, and fairest fair,

Of birth and worth beyond compare,

Thou art the causer of my care,

Since first I loved thee.

Yet God hath given to me a mind,5

The which to thee shall prove as kind

As any one that thou shalt find,

Of high or low degree.

The shallowest water makes maist din,

The deadest pool the deepest linn;10

The richest man least truth within,

Though he preferred be.

Yet, nevertheless, I am content,

And never a whit my love repent,

But think the time was a' weel spent,15

Though I disdained be.

O! Helen sweet, and maist complete,

My captive spirit's at thy feet!

Thinks thou still fit thus for to treat

Thy captive cruelly?20

O! Helen brave! but this I crave,

Of thy poor slave some pity have,

And do him save that's near his grave,

And dies for love of thee.