Joanna Baillie: The Outlaw’s Song

The Outlaw’s Song

The chough and crow to roost are gone,
The owl sits on the tree,
The hush’d wind wails with feeble moan,
Like infant charity.
The wild-fire dances on the fen,
The red star sheds its ray;
Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
It is our op’ning day.

Both child and nurse are fast asleep,
And closed is every flower,
And winking tapers faintly peep
High from my lady’s bower;
Bewilder’d hinds with shorten’d ken
Shrink on their murky way;
Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
It is our op’ning day.

Nor board nor garner own we now,
Nor roof nor latched door,
Nor kind mate, bound by holy vow
To bless a good man’s store;
Noon lulls us in a gloomy den,
And night is grown our day;
Uprouse ye then, my merry men!
And use it as ye may.

Joanna Baillie
(1762-1851)
The Outlaw’s Song

fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, CLASSIC POETRY