Classic Poem

It fell on a day, and a bonny summer day,
When corn grew green and yellow,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyll and Airly.

Argyll has raisd an hundred men,
An hundred men, and so many,
And he is away by the back of Dunkeld,
For to plunder the bonny house of Airly.

Lady Margaret looks oer her bower-window,
And O but she looks weary!
And there she spied the great Argyll,
Coming to plunder the bonny house of Airly.

‘Come down, come down, Lady Margaret,’ he said,
‘Come down, and kiss me fairly:’
‘O I will not kiss the great Argyll,
If he should not leave a standing stone in Airly.’

He hath taken her by the left shoulder,
Says, Lady, where lyes thy dowry?
‘It 's up and it 's down by the bonny bank-side,
Amongst the planting of Airly.’

They have sought it up, they have sought it down,
They have sought it both late and early,
And they have found it in the bonny plumb-tree
That shines on the bowling-green of Airly.

He hath taken her by the middle so small,
And O but she lookd weary!
He hath laid her down by the bonny burn-side,
Till he hath plundered the bonny house of Airly.

‘If my good lord were at home this night,
As he is with Prince Charly,
Nouther you nor no Scottish lord
Durst have set a foot on the bowling-green of Airly.

‘Ten bonny sons I have born unto him,
The eleventh neer saw his daddy;
Although I had an hundred more,
I would give them all to Prince Charly.’