It’s up the street, and down the street,
  And up the street again,
And all the day, and all the way,
  She looks at noble men;
But him she seeks she cannot find
  In all that moving train;
No one can please that anxious gaze,
  And own to “Ballenden.”

From the high castle on the knowe,
  Adown the Canongate,
And from the palace in the howe,
  Up to the castle yett,
A hizzy here, a cadie there,
  She stops with modest mien;
All she can say four words convey: 
  “I seek for Ballenden.”

Nor more of our Scotch tongue she knew,
  For she’s of foreign kin,
And all her speech can only reach
  “I seek for Ballenden.” 
No Ballenden she yet could find,
  No one aught of him knew;
She sought at night dark Toddrick’s Wynd,
  Next morn to search anew.

II.

And who is she, this fair ladye,
  To whom our land is strange? 
Why all alone, to all unknown,
  Within this city’s range? 
Her face was of the bonnie nut-brown
  Our Scotch folk love to view,
When ’neath it shows the red, red rose,
  Like sunlight shining through.

Her tunic was of the mazerine,
  Of scarlet her roquelaire,
And o’er her back, in ringlets black,
  Fell down her raven hair. 
Her eyes, so like the falling sterns,
  Seen on an August night,
Had surely won from eastern sun
  Some rayons of his light.

And still she tried, and still she plied,
  Her task so sad and vain,
The words still four—­they were no more—­
  “I seek for Ballenden.” 
No Ballenden could she yet find,
  No one aught of him knew,
And still at night down Toddrick’s Wynd,
  Next morn to search anew.

III.

In Euphan Barnet’s lowly room,
  Adown that darksome wynd,
A ladye fair is lying there,
  In illness sair declined;
Her cheeks now like the lily pale,
  The roses waned away,
Her eyes so bright have lost their light,
  Her lips are like the clay.

On her fair breast a missal rests,
  Illumed with various dyes,
In which were given far views of heaven
  In old transparencies. 
There hangs the everlasting cross
  Of emerald and of gold,
That cross of Christ so often kissed
  When she her beads had told.

Those things are all forgotten now,
  Far other thoughts remain;
And as she dreams she ever renes,
  “I seek for Ballenden.” 
Oh Ballenden! oh Ballenden! 
  Whatever, where’er thou be,
That ladye fair is dying there,
  And all for love of thee.

IV.

In the old howf of the Canongate
  There is a little lair,
And on it grows a pure white rose,
  By love implanted there;
And o’er it hangs a youthful man,
  With a cloud upon his brow,
And sair he moans, and sair he groans,
  For her who sleeps below.