The Mystery

"The gallows in my garden, people say,     Is new and neat and adequately tall.     I tie the noose on in a knowing way     As one that knots"

"Laugh your best, O blazoned forests,     Me ye shall not shift or shame     With your beauty: here among you     Man hath set his spear of flam"

"When you came over the top of the world     In the great day on the Downs,     The air was crisp and the clouds were curled,     When you came"

"The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,     The barren grasses blow upon my spear,     A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith     And love"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"