Peggy's the Lady of the Hall

And will she leave the lowly clowns     For silk and satins gay,     Her woollen aprons and drab gowns     For lady's cold array?     And will she leave the wild hedge rose,     The redbreast and the wren,     And will she leave her Sunday beaus     And milk shed in the glen?     And will she leave her kind friends all     To be the Lady of the Hall?     The cowslips bowed their golden drops,     The white thorn white as sheets;     The lamb agen the old ewe stops,     The wren and robin tweets.     And Peggy took her milk pails still,     And sang her evening song,     To milk her cows on Cowslip Hill     For half the summer long.     But silk and satins rich and rare     Are doomed for Peggy still to wear.     But when the May had turned to haws,     The hedge rose swelled to hips,     Peggy was missed without a cause,     And left us in eclipse.     The shepherd in the hovel milks,     Where builds the little wren,     And Peggy's gone, all clad in silks--     Far from the happy glen,     From dog-rose, woodbine, clover, all     To be the Lady of the Hall.