⁠Bursts forth an unhappy sighing,
"Alas, alas, for my wretched soul!"
⁠'Tis poor damned Margaret crying!
⁠⁠The lad he leaps like a wounded deer,
⁠⁠And were not his guardian angel near
Some digger might find in a marshy knoll
⁠Where his little bleached bones were lying.

But the ground grows firmer beneath his feet,
⁠And there from over the meadow
A lamp is flickering homely-sweet;
⁠The boy at the edge of the shadow
⁠⁠Looks back as he pauses to take his breath,
⁠⁠And in his glance is the fear of death.
'Twas eerie there 'mid the sedge and peat,
⁠Ah, that was a place to dread, O!

I stand aloft on the balcony.
⁠The starlings around me crying,
And let like masnad my hair stream free
⁠To the storm o'er the ramparts flying.
Oh headlong wind, on this narrow ledge
⁠I would I could try thy muscle
And, breast to breast, two steps from the edge,
⁠Fight it out in a deadly tussle.

Beneath me I see, like hounds at play.
⁠How billow on billow dashes;
Yea, tossing aloft the glittering spray,
⁠The fierce throng hisses and clashes.
Oh, might I leap into the raging flood
⁠And urge on the pack to harry