She rode o’er hill, she rode o’er plain,
She rode by fields of barley,
By morning-glories filled with rain,
Along the wood-side gnarly.
She rode o’er plain, she rode o’er hill,
By orchard land and berry;
Her eyes were sparkling as the rill,
Cheeks, redder than the cherry.
A bird sang here, a bird sang there,
Then blithely sang together;
Sang sudden greeting everywhere,
“Good-morrow!” and “Good weather!”
The sunlight’s laughing radiance
Laughed in her radiant tresses;
The bold breeze made her wild curls dance,
And flushed her face with kisses.
“Why ride you here, why ride you there,
Why ride you here so merry?
The sunlight living in your hair,
And in your cheek the berry?
“Why ride you with your sea-green plumes,
Your sea-green silken habit,
By balmy bosks of faint perfumes,
And haunts of roe and rabbit?”
“The morning ploughed the east with gold,
And planted it with holly;
And I was young and he was old,
And rich, and melancholy.
“A wife they ’d have me to his bed,
And to the church they hurried;
But now, gramercy! he is dead!
Thank God! is dead and buried.
“I ride by tree, I ride by rill,
I ride by rye and clover,
For by the church beyond the hill
Awaits my first true lover.”