O listen, listen, ladies gay!
    No haughty feat of arms [I]1 tell;
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
    That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.

"[Moor, moor the barge]2, ye gallant crew!
    And, gentle ladye, deign to stay,
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
    Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.

"The blackening wave is edg'd with white:
    To inch and rock the sea-mews fly;
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
    Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.

"Last night the gifted Seer did view
    A wet shroud swathed round ladye gay;
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch:
    Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?" --

"'Tis not because Lord Lindesay's heir
    To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my ladye-mother there
    Sits lonely in her castle-hall.

"'Tis not because the ring they ride,
    And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide,
    If 'tis not fill'd by Rosabelle." --

O'er Roslin all that dreary night
    A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
'Twas broader than the watch-fire's light,
    And [redder]3 than the bright moon-beam.

It glar'd on Roslin's castled rock,
    It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
'Twas seen from Dryden's groves of oak,
    And seen from cavern'd Hawthorn-den.

Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud,
    Where Roslin's chiefs uncoffin'd lie,
Each Baron, for a sable shroud,
    Sheath'd in his iron panoply.

Seem'd all on fire, within, around,
    Deep sacristy and altar's pale,
Shone every pillar foliage-bound,
    And glimmer'd all the dead men's mail.

Blaz'd battlement and pinnet high,
    Blaz'd every rose-carved buttress fair --
So still they blaze when fate is nigh
    The lordly line of high St. Clair.

There are twenty of Roslin's barons bold
    Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold --
    But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!

And each St. Clair was buried there,
    With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the [sea-caves]4 rung, and the wild [winds]5 sung
    The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.