III Beside a grotto of their own, With boughs above them closing, The Seven are laid, and in the shade 25 They lie like fawns reposing. But now, upstarting with affright At noise of man and steed, Away they fly to left, to right-- Of your fair household, Father-knight, 30 Methinks you take small heed! Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully, The solitude of Binnorie. IV Away the seven fair Campbells fly, And, over hill and hollow, 35 With menace proud, and insult loud, The youthful Rovers [2] follow. Cried they, "Your Father loves to roam: Enough for him to find The empty house when he comes home; 40 For us your yellow ringlets comb, For us be fair and kind!" Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully, The solitude of Binnorie. V Some close behind, some side by side, 45 Like clouds in stormy weather; They run, and cry, "Nay, let us die, And let us die together." A lake was near; the shore was steep; There never foot had been; 50 They ran, and with a desperate leap Together plunged into the deep, [3] Nor ever more were seen. Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully, The solitude of Binnorie. 55 VI The stream that flows out of the lake, As through the glen it rambles, Repeats a moan o'er moss and stone, For those seven lovely Campbells. Seven little Islands, green and bare, 60 Have risen from out the deep: The fishers say, those sisters fair, By faeries all are buried there, And there together sleep. Sing, mournfully, oh! mournfully, 65 The solitude of Binnorie. * * * * * VARIANTS ON THE TEXT [Variant 1: 1836. I could ... 1807.] [Variant 2: 1807. The Irish Rovers ... MS.] [Variant 3: 1807. The sisters ran like mountain sheep MS. And in together did they leap MS.] * * * * * FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT [Footnote A: It is a well-known Scottish Ballad. In Jamieson's 'Popular Ballads', vol. i. p. 50 (1806), its title is "The Twa Sisters." In Walter Scott's 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border', vol. iii. p. 287, it is called "The Cruel Sisters." In 'The Ballads of Scotland', collected by W. Edmonstone Aytoun (1858), vol. i. p. 194, it is printed "Binnorie." In 1807 Wordsworth printed the sub-title 'The Solitude of Binnorie'.--Ed.] [Footnote B: In Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal there is an entry, under date August 16, 1800,