The Maid of Neidpath

 O lovers’ eyes are sharp to see, 
And lovers’ ears in hearing; 
And love, in life’s extremity, 
Can lend an hour of cheering. 
Disease had been in Mary’s bower 
And slow decay from mourning, 
Though now she sits on Neidpath’s tower 
To watch her Love’s returning. 

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright, 
Her form decay’d by pining, 
Till through her wasted hand, at night, 
You saw the taper shining. 
By fits a sultry hectic hue 
Across her cheek was flying; 
By fits so ashy pale she grew 
Her maidens thought her dying. 

Yet keenest powers to see and hear 
Seem’d in her frame residing; 
Before the watch-dog prick’d his ear 
She heard her lover’s riding; 
Ere scarce a distant form was kenn’d 
She knew and waved to greet him, 
And o’er the battlement did bend 
As on the wing to meet him. 

He came—he pass’d—an heedless gaze 
As o’er some stranger glancing: 
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase, 
Lost in his courser’s prancing— 
The castle-arch, whose hollow tone 
Returns each whisper spoken, 
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan 
Which told her heart was broken.

Form: Ballad

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