His brow was like the mountain snae Gilt by the morning beam; His cheeks like living roses glow; His een like azure stream. The boy was clad in robes of grene, Sweete as the infant spring; And like the mavis on the bush, He gart the vallies ring. 122, slaited. 125 That sweetly wavd around his face, That face beyond compare; He sang sae sweet, it might dispel A' rage but fell dispair. 153. Stall copy, And _first_ she kissed. 157 "Obraid me not, my Lord Barnard! Obraid me not for shame! Wi' that saim speir, O pierce my heart! And put me out o' pain. "Since nothing bot Gill Morice' head Thy jelous rage could quell, Let that saim hand now tak hir life That neir to thee did ill. "To me nae after days nor nichts Will eir be saft or kind; I'll fill the air with heavy sighs, And greet till I am blind." "Enouch of blood by me's bin spilt, Seek not zour death frae me; I rather lourd it had been my sel Than eather him or thee. "With waefo wae I hear zour plaint; Sair, sair I rew the deid, That eir this cursed hand of mine Had gard his body bleid. "Dry up zour tears, my winsome dame, Ze neir can heal the wound; Ze see his head upon the speir, His heart's blude on the ground. "I curse the hand that did the deid, The heart that thocht the ill; The feet that bore me wi' sik speid, The comely zouth to kill. "I'll ay lament for Gill Morice, As gin he were mine ain; I'll neir forget the dreiry day On which the zouth was slain." CHILD NORYCE. From Motherwell's _Minstrelsy_, p. 282. "By testimony of a most unexceptionable description,--but which it would be tedious here to detail,--the Editor can distinctly trace this ballad as existing in its present shape at least a century ago, which carries it decidedly beyond the date of the first printed copy of _Gil Morice_; and this with a poem which has been preserved but by oral tradition, is no mean _positive_ antiquity." In the Introduction to his collection, Motherwell mentions his having found a more complete copy of this ballad under the title of _Babe Nourice_. Child Noryce is a clever young man, He wavers wi' the wind; His horse was silver shod before, With the beaten gold behind. He called to his little man John, 5 Saying, "You don't see what I see; For O yonder I see the very first woman That ever loved me. "Here is a glove, a glove," he said, "Lined with the silver gris; 10 You may tell her to come to the merry green wood, To speak to Child Nory. "Here is a ring, a ring," he says, "It's all gold but the stane; You may tell her to come to the merry green wood, 15 And ask the leave o' nane."