You couldna see her yellow hair
For gowd and pearls that were sae rare;
You couldna see her middle sma',
Her gowden girdle was sae bra'.
A famous harper passing by,
The sweet pale face he chanced to spy;
And when he looked that ladye on,
He sighed and made a heavy moan.
He made a harp of her breast-bone,
Whose sounds would melt a heart of stone;
He's ta'en three locks of her yellow hair,
And wi' them strung his harp sae fair.
He brought it to her father's hall,
And there was the court assembled all.
He laid this harp upon a stone,
And straight it began to play alone:
"Oh, yonder sits my father, the king,
And yonder sits my mother, the queen,
And yonder stands my brother, Hugh,
And yonder my William, sweet and true."
But the last tune that the harp played then
Binnorie! O Binnorie!
Was, "Wae to my sister, false Ellen,
By the bonny mill-dams of Binnorie!"
KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR-MAID.
I read that once in Africa
A princely wight did reign,
Who had to name Cophetua,
As poets they did feign:
From nature's laws he did decline,
For sure he was not of my mind,
He car-ed not for women-kind,
But did them all disdain.
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