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Minstrelsy of the Scottish border - National Library of Scotland

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128 INIIXSTRELSY OF<br />

Some years after tlie song was composed, a lady, vlio<br />

is now dead, repeated to tlie author ano<strong>the</strong>r imperfect<br />

line <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> original ballad, which presents a simple and<br />

affecting image to <strong>the</strong> mind :<br />

" I ride single on my saddle,<br />

" For <strong>the</strong> flowers <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> forest are a' wcde away."<br />

The first <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se trifling fragments, joined to <strong>the</strong> re-<br />

membrance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> fjital battle <strong>of</strong> Flodden, (in <strong>the</strong> cala-<br />

mities accompanying which <strong>the</strong> inhabitants <strong>of</strong> Eltrick<br />

Forest suffered a distinguished share,) and to <strong>the</strong> pre-<br />

sent solitary and desolate appearance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> country,<br />

excited, in <strong>the</strong> mind <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> author, <strong>the</strong> ideas, which slie<br />

has expressed in a strain <strong>of</strong> elegiac simplicity and ten-<br />

derness, which has seldom been equalled.

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