“VIII'Farewell to barn and stack and tree,Farewell to Severn shore.Terence, look your last at me,For I come home no more.'The sun burns on the half-mown hill,By now the blood is dried;And Maurice amongst the hay lies stillAnd my knife is in his side.'My mother thinks us long away;'Tis time the field were mown.She had two sons at rising day,To-night she'll be alone.'And here's a bloody hand to shake,And oh, man, here's good-bye;We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,My blood hands and I.'I wish you strength to bring you pride,And a love to keep you clean,And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,At racing on the green.'Long for me the rick will wait,And long will wait the fold,And long will stand the empty plate,And dinner will be cold.'IXOn moonlit heath and lonesome bankThe sheep beside me graze;And yon the gallows used to clankFast by the four cross ways.A careless shepherd once would keepThe flocks by moonlight there,And high amongst the glimmering sheepThe dead man stood on air.They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:The whistles blow forlorn.And trains all night groan on the railTo men that die at morn.There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,Or wakes, as may betide,A better lad, if things went right,Than most that sleep outside.And naked to the hangman's nooseThe morning clocks will ringA neck God made for other useThan strangling in a string.And sharp the link of life will snap,And dead on air will standHeels that held up as straight a chapAs treads upon the land.So here I'll watch the night and waitTo see the morning shine,When he will hear the stroke of eightAnd not the stroke of nine;And wish my friend as sound a sleepAs lads' I did not know,That shepherded the moonlit sheepA hundred years ago.”

“The half-moon westers low, my love,And the wind brings up the rain;And wide apart lie we, my love,And seas between the twain.I know not if it rains, my love, In the land where you do lie;And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,You know no more than I.”

“Along the field as we came byA year ago, my love and I,The aspen over stile and stoneWas talking to itself alone.'Oh who are these that kiss and pass?A country lover and his lass;Two lovers looking to be wed;And time shall put them both to bed,But she shall lie with earth above,And he beside another love.'And sure enough beneath the treeThere walks another love with me, And overhead the aspen heavesIts rainy-sounding silver leaves;And I spell nothing in their stir,But now perhaps they speak to her,And plain for her to understandThey talk about a time at handWhen I shall sleep with clover clad,And she beside another lad.”

“Shake hands, we shall never be friends; give over:I only vex you the more I try.All's wrong that ever I've done and said,And nought to help it in this dull head:Shake hands, goodnight, goodbye.But if you come to a road where danger Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,Be good to the lad that loves you trueAnd the soul that was born to die for you,And whistle and I'll be there.”

“If it chance your eye offends you,Pluck it out lad, and be sound:'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,And many a balsam grows on ground.And if your hand or foot offend you,Cut it off, lad, and be whole;But play the man, stand up and end you,When your sickness is your soul.”

“Good creatures, do you love your lives And have you ears for sense?Here is a knife like other knives, That cost me eighteen pence. I need but stick it in my heart And down will come the sky,And earth's foundations will depart And all you folk will die.”

“When I watch the living meet,And the moving pageant fileWarm and breathing through the streetWhere I lodge a little while,If the heats of hate and lustIn the house of flesh are strong,Let me mind the house of dustWhere my sojourn shall be long.In the nation that is notNothing stands that stood before;There revenges are forgot,And the hater hates no more;Lovers lying two and twoAsk not whom they sleep beside,And the bridegroom all night throughNever turns him to the bride.”