Classic Poem

Nay, Margaret, thou trickster, why hast thou spread a false tale of me? —
That a babe unbaptized lay within my womb,
In the dwelling of a noble's son, where I and thou would not be together;
Or why wouldst thou not speak the truth as surely as I?
Not alike were my father, thou slanderer, and thine,
Not alike were my brethren and thine unlovely louts,
Not alike were our dwellings at sunset:
In my father's house were found venison and bones of the deer;
In thy father's house bree and bones of the fish were your fare.
As I climb from the town my step is heavy and lagging,
I am ill-pleased with the hussy that hath hatched this lying story,
The basest refuse of the folk, a light jade without cattle,
That for envy and malice hath spread ill-fame of me,
Evil gossip of me and of thee, honest Calum,
Thou whose curling hair floweth down in ringlets smooth,
Like the strings over the fiddle, over thy two shoulders.