But, if ’twere pity, if twere pain,
⁠His voice was thick and low,
And “’Tis no news,” he said “to hear
⁠You loved John Ashton so!

“I knew you, and I came to see—
⁠But since he’s dead, with you
I’ll go at once to seek the corpse;
⁠And haply find it, too!”

Full simple was the lassie’s heart,
⁠For all her angry tears:
She would have fear’d her lover’s death;
⁠She had no other fears:

She laid her reaping-hook aside,
⁠And stoop’d beneath the boughs,
And follow’d with undoubting foot
⁠Among the hazel knowes.

A shaggy fell was just beyond;
⁠The village lights were far;
And all was dusk, and all was still,
⁠Beneath the evening star:

Her mother was a mile away:
⁠No ear on earth to know
What sounds might scare the hooting owl
⁠Or hush the beck below.—

That night a stranger horseman rode
⁠Full fiercely down the glen:
And he may ride, or he may rest,
⁠Or he may come again,

But never more shall Ducie reap
⁠The harvests of the vale:
Her maiden sleep is sound and deep
⁠At foot of Harwood Dale.