Wild Mountain Thyme

By Master Hector of the Black Height

(Traditional, revised for Bernadette of RamsHaven)

Oh the summertime is come and the trees are sweetly blooming

And the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather.

Will you go, lassie, go? And we’ll all go together

To pluck wild mountain thyme from around the blooming heather.

Will you go, lassie, go?

I will build my love a bower by yon cool, crystal fountain

And upon it will I pile all the flowers of the mountain.

Will you go, lassie, go?...

Bernadette is gone away in a glen so dark and dreary

So I’ll come back with my spoils to the bower of my dearie.

Will you go, lassie, go?...

And as we’ve lost our love we shall not find such another

Though the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather.

Will you go, lassie, go? And we’ll all go together

To pluck wild mountain thyme from around the blooming heather.

Will you go, lassie, go?

(copyright Arthur McLean 1991-2000)

The North Wood's Lament

By Master Hector of the Black Height

(for Osis and Bernadette, Pennsic XXVIII)

The sad willow and the beech,

The tall ashwood and the poplar

Shed their leaves in bitter autumn

As a carpet for the rains;

A chill wind now calls in mourning

'Cross the clearing they have left us

And the thunder and the stillness leave us wanting.

When the storm winds whipped the wood,

When the lightning tore the firment,

When the mighty oak was fallen

And the apple close beside:

It was cold rain shook the branches,

It was lightning took them from us

And the thunder and the stillness leave us wanting.

They are fallen to the earth

And their glory feeds the forest.

Soon the green shoots of the springtide

Shall avenge the summer's blight

But no sapling so tall towers,

But no shoot can bloom so sweetly

And the thunder and the stillness leave us wanting.

(copyright Arthur McLean 1991-2000)