P. 279.
Miss M.H. Mason's Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs, p. 46,
'Giles Collin.'
| 1 |
Giles Collin he said to his mother one day,
Oh, mother, come bind up my head!
For tomorrow morning before it is day
I 'm sure I shall be dead. |
| 2 |
'Oh, mother, oh, mother, if I should die,
And I am sure I shall,
I will not be buried in our churchyard,
But under Lady Alice's wall.' |
| 3 |
His mother she made him some water-gruel,
And stirred it up with a spoon;
Giles Collin he ate but one spoonful,
And died before it was noon. |
| 4 |
Lady Alice was sitting in her window,
All dressed in her night-coif;
She saw as pretty a corpse go by
As ever she 'd seen in her life. |
| 5 |
'What bear ye there, ye six tall men?
What bear ye on your shourn?'
'We bear the body of Giles Collin,
Who was a true lover of yourn.' |
| 6 |
'Down with him, down with him, upon the grass,
The grass that grows so green;
For tomorrow morning before it is day
My body shall lie by him.' |
| 7 |
Her mother she made her some plum-gruel,
With spices all of the best;
Lady Alice she ate but one spoonful,
And the doctor he ate up the rest. |
| 8 |
Giles Collin was laid in the lower chancel,
Lady Alice all in the higher;
There grew up a rose from Lady Alice's breast,
And from Giles Collin's a briar. |
| 9 |
And they grew, and they grew, to the very church-top,
Until they could grow no higher,
And twisted and twined in a true-lover's knot,
Which made all the parish admire. |
