This is a very ancient song, but we could only give it from a modern copy. Some editions instead of the four last lines in the second stanza have these, which have too much merit to be wholly suppressed:

"Whan cockle shells turn siller bells,
And muscles grow on every tree,
When frost and snaw sall warm us aw',
Than sall my love prove true to me."

See the Orpheus Caledonius, &c.

Arthur's-seat, mentioned in ver. 17, is a hill near Edinborough; at the bottom of which is St. Anthony's well.

O WALY waly up the bank,

And waly waly down the brae,

And waly waly yon burn side,
Where I and my love wer wont to gae.

I leant my back unto an aik,

I thought it was a trusty tree! But first it bow'd and syne it brak, Sae my true love did lichtly me.

O waly waly, gin love be bonny,
A little time while it is new;
But when its auld, it waxeth cauld,
And fades awa' like morning dew

10

And set upon the nurses knee,

And I my sell were dead and gane!

For a maid again Ise never be.

From two ancient copies in black-letter: one in the
Pepys Collection; the other in the British Museum.
To the tune of "The Lady's Fall."

COME mourne, come mourne with mee,
You loyall lovers all;
Lament my loss in weeds of woe,
Whom griping grief doth thrall.

Like to the drooping vine,
Cut by the gardener's knife,
Even so my heart, with sorrow slaine,
Doth bleed for my sweet wife.

By death, that grislye ghost,
My turtle dove is slaine,
And I am left, unhappy man,
To spend my dayes in paine.

5

10

The messenger of God

With golden trumpe I see,

With manye other angels more,

Which sound and call for mee.

Instead of musicke sweet,

Her beauty late so bright,

Like roses in their prime, Is wasted like the mountain snowe,

15

Before warme Phebus' shine.

Her faire red colour'd cheeks

Strip off my bride's arraye,

My cork shoes from my feet; And, gentle mother, be not coye To bring my winding-sheet.

XIV.

This ballad is given from an old black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection, collated with another in the British Museum, H. 263. folio. It is there intitled, "The Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or the Step-Mother's Cruelty: being a relation of a lamentable and cruel murther, committed on the body of the Lady Isabella, the only daughter of a noble Duke, &c. To the tune of, The Lady's Fall." To some copies are annexed eight more modern stanzas, intitled, "The Dutchess's and Cook's Lamentation."

THERE was a lord of worthy fame,
And a hunting he would ride,

Attended by a noble traine
Of gentrye by his side.