Читать книгу Story-Telling Ballads. Selected and Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Boys' and Girls' Own Reading онлайн

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I’m sure your life she’d beg.”

“I have not seen, but I have heard

Her face described to me;

And, by my faith, between the two,

I’ll chose the gallows-tree.”

The tears fell from that poor girl’s eyes,

In anger or in spleen?—

And ever and anon she sighed,

And deep sobs came between.

“Belike,” quo’ she, “they’ve painted her

Far worse than she may look;

Many a man has an ugly wife,

That the gallows could not brook.”

“I have no wish to see her face,

Far less to marry her;

But ye seem o’ a kindly heart,

And aiblins are as fair.

“So let me see your face, my joy,

And by your countenance,

I’ll see if I dare trust you with

A letter for my chance?”

She threw the veil from off her face,

“I’m no well faured I know;

But kernels lie inside hard shells,

And gold in the earth below.”

“So sweet and sensible ye speak,

Ye almost make me wish,

Meikle-Mouthed Meg was like to you,

So kind, so young, so lish.”

He held the light within the cruse

Close to the maiden’s face,

Wi’ loof o’er e’en, he earnestly

Perused each simple grace.