Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Scottish ballads

284
O we'll sit on his bonnie breist-bane.
And we'll pyke out his bonnie gi*ey een ;
Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair,
We'll theek our nest when it blaws bare.
Mony a ane for him maks mane,
But nane sail ken where he is gane ;
Ower his banes, when they are bare,
The wind sail blaw for evermair !" *
BROWN ADAM.
O WHA wad wish the wind to blaw,
Or the green leaves fa' therewith ?
Or wha wad wish a lealer love
Than Brown Adam the Smith ?
But tliey hae banished him, Brown Adam,
Frae father and frae mother ;
And they hae banished him. Brown Adam,
Frae sister and frae brother.
And they hae banished him, Brown Adam,
The flouir o' a' his kin :
And he's biggit a bouir in gude greenwood,
Atween his ladye and him.
It fell upon a summer's day,
Brown Adam he thocht lang ;
And, for to hunt some venison,
To greenwood he wald gang.
* Many various editions of this wild old ditty have already appeared.
I'hc present is partly from recitation, and partly from the copy given in
the Border Minstrelsy.