A ballad
MY love at Seaton Terrace dwells,
A hale and hearty wight,
Who lilts away the summer day,
Also the winter night:
The merriest bird with rapture stirr’d,
Could never yet surpass
The melody awaken’d by
The Seaton Terrace lass!
She’s graceful as a lily-wand,
Right modest too is she,
And then ye’ll search in vain the land
To find a busier bee
Like silver clear her iron gear
Like burnished gold, the brass—
For tidyness there’s none to peer
The Seaton Terrace lass.
More restless than a clucking hen
About her, Minnie stirs;
“Go, jewel, knit your fancy net,
And I will scour the floors.”
“Enjoy the day, a-down the way,
Where greenest grows the grass,
No help I need,” replies with speed
The Seaton Terrace lass.
She’ll knit or sew, she’ll bake or brew—
She’ll wash the clothes so clean,
The very daisy pales beside
Her linen on the green;
Then what she’ll do, with ease she’ll do,
And still her manner has
A charm, would gar a stoic woo
The Seaton Terrace lass.
Discomfort flies her dark-brown eyes,
And when the men folk come
All black and weary from the pit,
They find a welcome home.
Her brothers tease her, and a pride,
The father feeleth as
Again he meets again he greets
The Seaton Terrace lass.
When day is past and night at last
Begins to cloud the dell,
She’ll take her skiel and out she’ll steal,
And meet me at the well;
Then, oh! how fleet the moments sweet—
Yet fleeter shall they pass,
That night the Bebside laddie weds
The Seaton Terrace lass.
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