The world needs mending and some God-sending,
All in the forest of Rumbollow.
The mill is yonder where she may wander;
The wheels they merrily row, they row;
The lade is gushing, the water's rushing
On to the ocean below, below.
The song is ending, or scattered and blending
In the wild winds as they blow, they blow;
She moves still faster with wilder gesture,
All in the forest of Rumbollow.
It is no seeming, hark! comes a screaming
The moaning forest all through, all through;
The miller is running, no danger shunning,
The foaming waters down flow, down, flow:
Too late his braving, there is no saving--
Down the mill lade they go, they go,
Mother and child 'midst the waters wild;
All in the forest of Rumbollow!
XIV.
THE LEGEND OF THE BURNING OF MISTRESS JAMPHRAY.
I.
From the dark old times that have gone before,
We have got in our day some little relief;
We don't think of doing what they did of yore,
To saw a man through for a point of belief;
We do not believe in old women's dreams,
And devils and ghosts we can do without;
Nor do we now set an old woman in flames,
But rather endeavour to put them out.
She has ta'en her lang staff in her shaky hand,
And gaen up the stair of Will Mudie's land;
She has looked in the face of Will Mudie's wean,
And the wean it was dead that very same e'en.
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