2. ‘My love he was so high and proud, His fortune too so high, He for another fair pretty maid Me left and passed me by. 3. ‘Me did he send a love-letter, He sent it from the town, Saying no more he loved me, For that I was so brown. 4. ‘I sent his letter back again, Saying his love I valued not, Whether that he would fancy me, Whether that he would not. 5. ‘When that six months were overpass’d, Were overpass’d and gone, Then did my lover, once so bold, Lie on his bed and groan. 6. ‘When that six months were overpass’d, Were gone and overpass’d, O then my lover, once so bold, With love was sick at last. 7. ‘First sent he for the doctor-man: “You, doctor, me must cure; The pains that now do torture me I can not long endure.” 8. ‘Next did he send from out the town, O next did send for me; He sent for me, the brown, brown girl Who once his wife should be. 9. ‘O ne’er a bit the doctor-man His sufferings could relieve; O never an one but the brown, brown girl Who could his life reprieve.’ 10. Now you shall hear what love she had For this poor love-sick man, How all one day, a summer’s day, She walked and never ran. 11. When that she came to his bedside, Where he lay sick and weak, O then for laughing she could not stand Upright upon her feet. 12. ‘You flouted me, you scouted me, And many another one, Now the reward is come at last, For all that you have done.’ 13. The rings she took from off her hands, The rings by two and three: ‘O take, O take these golden rings, By them remember me.’ 14. She had a white wand in her hand, She strake him on the breast: ‘My faith and troth I give back to thee, So may thy soul have rest.’ 15. ‘Prithee,’ said he, ‘forget, forget, Prithee forget, forgive; O grant me yet a little space, That I may be well and live.’ 16. ‘O never will I forget, forgive, So long as I have breath; I’ll dance above your green, green grave Where you do lie beneath.’ FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM +The Text+ is from a broadside in the Douce Ballads, with a few unimportant corrections from other stall-copies, as printed by Percy and Ritson. +The Story+ is much the same as _Lord Thomas and Fair Annet_, except in the manner of Margaret’s death. None of the known copies of the ballad are as early in date as _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ (a play by Beaumont and Fletcher, first produced, it is said, in 1611), in which the humorous old Merrythought sings two fragments of this ballad; stanza 5 in Act II. Sc. 8, and the first two lines of stanza 2 in Act III. Sc. 5. As there given, the lines are slightly different. The last four stanzas of this ballad again present the stock ending, for which see the introduction to _Lord Lovel_. The last stanza condemns itself. FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM