EDWARD GRAY

 
Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town
     Met me walking on yonder way;
‘And have you lost your heart?’ she said;
     ‘And are you married yet, Edward Gray?’

Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me;
     Bitterly weeping I turn’d away:
‘Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more
     Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

‘Ellen Adair she loved me well,
     Against her father’s and mother’s will;
To-day I sat for an hour and wept
     By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill.

‘Shy she was, and I thought her cold,
     Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Fill’d I was with folly and spite,
     When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

‘Cruel, cruel the words I said!
     Cruelly came they back to-day:
“You’re too slight and fickle,” I said,
     “To trouble the heart of Edward Gray.”

‘There I put my face in the grass–
     Whisper’d, “Listen to my despair;
I repent me of all I did;
     Speak a little, Ellen Adair!”

‘Then I took a pencil, and wrote
     On the mossy stone, as I lay,
“Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;
     And here the heart of Edward Gray!”

‘Love may come, and love may go,
     And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree;
But I will love no more, no more,
     Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

‘Bitterly wept I over the stone;
     Bitterly weeping I turn’d away.
There lies the body of Ellen Adair!
     And there the heart of Edward Gray!’