rs to bless what she gave away;
Yet she was blithe and she was gay.
And now she has gone to the hunting green,
All on this bright and sunshiny day,
To fly her favourite peregrine,
With her hunting coat of the baudykin,
Down which there flowed her raven hair,
And her kirtle of the red sendal fine,
With an eagle's plume in her heading gear.

II.

If the knight had not a hawk on his wrist,
He had kestrel eyes both cunning and keen,
And the quarry of which he was in quest
Was the heart of the lovely Tomasine;
But the ladye thought him a kestrel kite,
With a grovelling eye to the farmer's coop,
And wanted the bold and daring flight
That mounts to the sun to make a swoop.

The Baron of Weir points to the sky,
"Ho! ho! a proud heron upon the wing!
Unhood, my Tomasine dear, untie!
Off with the jesses--away him fling!"
"Up! up! my Guy," cried the laughing maid,
As with nimble fingers she him unjessed,
"Up! up! and away! and earn thy bread,
Then back to thy mistress to be caressed."
Up sprang the bird with a joyful cry,
And eyed his quarry, yet far away,
Still up and up in the dark blue sky,
That he might aim a swoop on his prey;
Then down as the lightning bolt of Jove
On the heron, who, giving a scream of fear,
Shoots away from his enemy over above,
And makes for the rushing Water of Weir.

III.

The Water of Weir is rushing down,
Foaming and furious, muddy and brown,
From the heights where the laughing Naeiads dwell,
And cascades leap from the craggy fell,
Where the mountain streamlets brattle and brawl,
'Midst the mountain maidens' echoing call,
Through pools where the water-kelpies wait
For the rider who dares the roaring spate.
Rain-fed, proud, turgid, and swollen,
Now foaming wild, now sombre and sullen;
Dragging the rushes from banks and braes,
Tearing the drooping branches of trees,
Rolling them down by scallop and scaur,
Involving all in a watery war--
Turned, and whirled, and swept along,
Down to the sea to be buried and gone.

The peregrine, fixed on the wader's back,
Is carried along in her devious track,
As with a weak and a wailing scream
The victim crosses the raging stream.
"I will lose, I will lose my gay peregrine!"
Cried shrilly the Ladye Tomasine:
She will hurry across the bridge of wood,
With its rail of wattle which long hath stood;
Her nimble feet are upon the plank
That will bear her over from bank to bank;
She has crossed it times a thousandfold:
Time brings youth and Ti