For womens banning's wonderous sair.
Balow, &c.
Bairne, sin thy cruel father is gave,
Thy winsome smiles maun eise my paine;
My babe and I'll together live,
He'll comfort me when cares doe grieve:
My babe and I right saft will ly,
And quite forgeit man's cruelty.
Balow, &c.
Fareweil, fareweil, thou falsest youth,
That evir kist a womans mouth!
I wish all maides be warnd by mee
Nevir to trust mans curtesy;
For if we doe bot chance to bow,
They'le use us then they care not how.
Balow, my babe, ly stil, and sleipe,
It grives me sair to see thee weipe.
NOTES
- It is now an established fact that the unhappy Anne was daughter to Bothwell,
Bishop of Orkney. The faithless "father" was the lady's cousin, Alexander Erskine,son
to the Earl of Mar. While in the service of the Covenanters, he came to his death in
Douglass castle, 1640. See Child's English and Scottish ballads, IV., 123.-- Editor. - When sugar was first imported into Europe, it was a very great dainty; and
therefore the epithetsugredis used by all our old writers metaphorically to express
extreme and delicate sweetness. (See above, no. xi.) Sugar at present is cheap and
common; and therefore suggests now a coarse and vulgar idea.