A Ballad
From the What-d’ye-call-it
From the What-d’ye-call-it
’Twas when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind;
A damsel lay deploring,
All on a rock reclined.
Wide o’er the foaming billows
She casts a wistful look;
Her head was crown’d with willows,
That trembled o’er the brook.
Twelve months are gone and over,
And nine long tedious days.
Why didst thou, venturous lover,
Why didst thou trust the seas?
Cease, cease, thou cruel ocean,
And let my lover rest:
Ah! what’s thy troubled motion
To that within my breast?
The merchant, robb’d of pleasure,
Sees tempests in despair:
But what’s the loss of treasure,
To losing of my dear?
Should you some coast be laid on,
Where gold and diamonds grow,
You’d find a richer maiden,
But none that loves you so.
How can they say that nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why then beneath the water
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the rocks discover,
That lurk beneath the deep,
To wreck the wandering lover,
And leave the maid to weep.
All melancholy lying,
Thus wail’d she for her dear;
Repaid each blast with sighing,
Each billow with a tear;
When o’er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spied;
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bow’d her head, and died.