5
For of that fate he shared and would no longer stay
The whole was intercepted,
That very few escaped
The dreadful conflagration of that woeful day.
This set the whole nation
In grief and vexation:
The widows did weep, and the maidens did say,
Why tarries my lover?
The bottle's surely over;
Is there none left to tell us the fate of the day?
I have heard a lilting,
At our ewes milking,
Lasses a-lilting before the break of day:
But now there's a moaning
Oh ilka green loaning,
Since our bra' Foresters are a' wed away.
At bught i' the morning,
Nae blythe iads are scorning;
The lasses are lonely, dowie, and wae;
Nae dassin, dae gabbin,
But sighing and sabbing,
Ilk ane lifts her leglen, and hies her away.
At e'en, in the gloamin,
Nae swankeys are roaming
'Mang stacks, wi' the lasses at bogle to play,
But ilk ane sits dreary,
Lamenting her deart,
The Flowers of the Forest that are wed away.
In har'st at the shearing,
Nae younkers are jeering;
