Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/The sisters
THE SISTERS.
I.
In Logan Braes, by shores of Dee,
There lived three sisters fair to see:—
The first had locks of raven hair,
And smile to make a seraph swear!
The next had eyes of bonny blue,
Like chinks to let the sunlight through;—
But oh, the third,—the third was such,
I thrilled and throbbed beneath her touch!
II.
The first was false for golden shame,
She married a miser old and lame;
The second she sinned with Lord Clanrone,
And now she lieth in churchyard lone;
The other lives on, but better, ’tis said,
For the weal of her soul if she were dead.
III.
O Kate, my hinny, how fares’t wi’ thee?
Are thy children bonny and blythe to see?
Ah well, good lack! no child, I ween,
In this lone house has e’er been seen.
IV.
And thou, poor Marion, foolish lass,
How fares’t with thee in the churchyard grass?
Is this thy dwelling, so cold and dim?
’Tis Death has taken thee home with him!
Ah, many a cottager’s hut, I wis,
Were a happier home for thee than this.
V.
Think of it, lord! and rend thy hair;
Thy crime has wrought this child’s despair
Had’st thou been true to love’s dear debt,
This grass—this grave were empty yet!
VI.
Of three fair sisters, two survive;
Yet both, God wot, have sins to shrive:
The one has bartered her peace for pelf,
The other for shame has sold herself.
Of all the three it were better to be
The corpse beneath the Churchyard Tree!