Читать книгу English and Scottish Ballads (Vol. 1-8) - Various Authors - Страница 154

THE LOWLANDS OF HOLLAND.

Mr. Stenhouse was informed that this ballad was composed, about the beginning of the last century, by a young widow in Galloway, whose husband was drowned on a voyage to Holland. (Musical Museum, ed. 1853, iv. 115.) But some of the verses appear to be old, and one stanza will be remarked to be of common occurrence in ballad poetry.

A fragment of this piece was published in Herd's collection, (ii. 49.) Our copy is from Johnson's Museum, p. 118, with the omission, however, of one spurious and absurd stanza, while another, not printed by Johnson, is supplied from the note above cited to the new edition. Cunningham makes sense of the interpolated verses and retains them; otherwise his version is nearly the same as the present. (Songs of Scotland, ii. 181.)

"The love that I have chosen,

I'll therewith be content,

The saut sea shall be frozen

Before that I repent;

Repent it shall I never,5

Until the day I die,

But the lowlands of Holland

Hae twinn'd my love and me.

"My love lies in the saut sea,

And I am on the side,10

Enough to break a young thing's heart,

Wha lately was a bride;

Wha lately was a bonnie bride,

And pleasure in her e'e,

But the lowlands of Holland15

Hae twinn'd my love and me.

"My love he built a bonnie ship,

And set her to the sea,

Wi' seven score brave mariners

To bear her companie;20

Threescore gaed to the bottom,

And threescore died at sea,

And the lowlands of Holland

Hae twinn'd my love and me.

"My love has built another ship25

And set her to the main;

He had but twenty mariners,

And all to bring her hame;

The stormy winds did roar again,

The raging waves did rout,30

And my love and his bonnie ship

Turn'd widdershins about.

"There shall nae mantle cross my back, Nor kame gae in my hair, Neither shall coal nor candle light35 Shine in my bower mair; Nor shall I chuse anither love, Until the day I die, Since the lowlands of Holland Hae twinn'd my love and me."40

"O haud your tongue, my daughter dear,

Be still, and be content;

There are mair lads in Galloway,

Ye need nae sair lament."

"O there is nane in Galloway,45 There's nane at a' for me; For I never loved a lad but ane, And he's drowned in the sea."

33−36, 45−48. With the conclusion of this piece may be compared a passage from Bonny Bee-Ho'm, vol. iii. p. 57.

"Ohon, alas! what shall I do,

Tormented night and day!

I never loved a love but ane,

And now he's gone away.

"But I will do for my true love

What ladies would think sair;

For seven years shall come and gae,

Ere a kaime gae in my hair.

"There shall neither a shoe gae on my foot,

Nor a kaime gae in my hair,

Nor ever a coal or candle light

Shine in my bower nae mair."