MOTHER MINE.
When by the ruddy fire I spelled, In one old volume and another,Those ballads haunted by fair women, One of them always seemed my mother.
In storied song she dwelt, where dwell Strange things and sweet of eld and eerie,The foam of Binnorie's bonny mill-dams, The bowing birks, the wells o' Wearie.
All the Queen's Maries did she know, The eldritch knight, the sisters seven,The lad that lay upon the Lomonds And saw the perch play in Lochleven.
Burd Helen had those great gray eyes Their rays from shadowy lashes flinging;That smile the winsome bride of Yarrow Before her tears were set to singing.
