At ending of the seventh year
Her father goes to visit her.
'My child, my child, how may you be?'
'O father, it fares ill with me.
'My feet are wasted in the mould,
The worms they gnaw my side so cold.'
'My child, change your love speedily
Or you must still in prison lie.'
''Tis better far the cold to dree
Than give my true love up for thee.'
THE MILK WHITE DOE.
It was a mother and a maid
That walked the woods among,
And still the maid went slow and sad,
And still the mother sung.
'What ails you, daughter Margaret?
Why go you pale and wan?
Is it for a cast of bitter love,
Or for a false leman?'
'It is not for a false lover
That I go sad to see;
But it is for a weary life
Beneath the greenwood tree.
'For ever in the good daylight
A maiden may I go,
But always on the ninth midnight
I change to a milk white doe.
'They hunt me through the green forest
With hounds and hunting men;
And ever it is my fair brother
That is so fierce and keen.'
* * * * *
'Good-morrow, mother.' 'Good-morrow, son;
Where are your hounds so good?'
Oh, they are hunting a white doe
Within the glad greenwood.
'And three times have they hunted her,
And thrice she's won away;
The fourth time that they follow her
That white doe they shall slay.'
* * * * * *
Then out and spoke the forester,
As he came from the wood,
'Now never saw I maid's gold hair
Among the wild deer's blood.
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