A New Forest Ballad

Oh she tripped over Ocknell plain,
    And down by Bradley Water;
And the fairest maid on the forest side
    Was Jane, the keeper's daughter.

She went and went through the broad gray lawns
    As down the red sun sank,
And chill as the scent of a new-made grave
    The mist smelt cold and dank.

'A token, a token!' that fair maid cried,
    'A token that bodes me sorrow;
For they that smell the grave by night
    Will see the corpse to-morrow.

'My own true love in Burley Walk
    Does hunt to-night, I fear;
And if he meet my father stern,
    His game may cost him dear.

'Ah, here's a curse on hare and grouse,
    A curse on hart and hind;
And a health to the squire in all England,
    Leaves never a head behind.'

Her true love shot a mighty hart
    Among the standing rye,
When on him leapt that keeper old
    From the fern where he did lie.

The forest laws were sharp and stern,
    The forest blood was keen;
They lashed together for life and death
    Beneath the hollies green.

The metal good and the walnut wood
    Did soon in flinders flee;
They tost the orts to south and north,
    And grappled knee to knee.

They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
    They wrestled still and sore;
Beneath their feet the myrtle sweet
    Was stamped to mud and gore.

Ah, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
    That starest with never a frown
On all the grim and the ghastly things
    That are wrought in thorpe and town:

And yet, cold pale moon, thou cruel pale moon,
    That night hadst never the grace
To lighten two dying Christian men
    To see one another's face.

They wrestled up, they wrestled down,
    They wrestled sore and still,
The fiend who blinds the eyes of men
    That night he had his will.

Like stags full spent, among the bent
    They dropped a while to rest;
When the young man drove his saying knife
    Deep in the old man's breast.

The old man drove his gunstock down
    Upon the young man's head;
And side by side, by the water brown,
    Those yeomen twain lay dead.

They dug three graves in Lyndhurst yard;
    They dug them side by side;
Two yeomen lie there, and a maiden fair
    A widow and never a bride.

In the New Forest, 1847.