O waly, waly, love is bonny, A little time while it is new; But when its auld, it waxeth cauld, And fades awa' like the morning dew. When cockle-shells turn siller bells, And muscles grow on every tree, Whan frost and snaw sall warm us aw, Then sall my love prove true to me. Now Arthur seat sall be my bed, The sheets sall ne'er be fyld by me: Saint Anton's well sall be my drink, Since my true-love's forsaken me. Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw, And shake the green leaves aff the tree? O gentle death, whan wilt thou cum, And tak' a life that wearies me! 'Tis not the frost that freezes sae, Nor blawing snaw's inclemencie, 'Tis not sic cauld, that makes me cry, But my love's heart grown cauld to me. Whan we came in by Glasgow town, We were a comely sight to see, My love was clad in black velvet, And I myself in cramasie. But had I wist before I kist, That love had been sae hard to win; I'd lockt my heart in case of gowd, And pinn'd it with a siller pin. And oh! if my poor babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee, And I mysel in the cold grave! Since my true-love 's forsaken me." The finest modern imitation of this style is the Braes of Yarrow; and perhaps the finest subject for a story of the same kind in any modern book, is that told in Turner's History of England, of a Mahometan woman, who having fallen in love with an English merchant, the father of Thomas a Becket, followed him all the way to England, knowing only the word London, and the name of her lover, Gilbert. But to have done with this, which is rather too serious a subject.-- The old English ballads are of a gayer and more lively turn. They are adventurous and romantic; but they relate chiefly to good living and good fellowship, to drinking and hunting scenes. Robin Hood is the chief of these, and he still, in imagination, haunts Sherwood Forest. The archers green glimmer under the waving branches; the print on the grass remains where they have just finished their noon-tide meal under the green-wood tree; and the echo of their bugle-horn and twanging bows resounds through the tangled mazes of the forest, as the tall slim deer glances startled by. "The trees in Sherwood Forest are old and good; The grass beneath them now is dimly green: Are they deserted all? Is no young mien, With loose-slung bugle, met within the wood? No arrow found--foil'd of its antler'd food-- Struck in the oak's rude side?--Is there nought seen To mark the revelries which there have been, In the sweet days of merry Robin Hood?