One of the most intense love-laments in the Scottish tradition. The speaker mourns Helen, who threw herself into the path of a bullet meant for him and died in his arms. He kills her murderer, then spends the rest of the ballad longing for death and reunion. The grief is physical, immediate, and unrelieved — there is no consolation, no moral, only the wish to lie in her arms beneath the green sod of Kirkconnell lea.

The ballad dates from the sixteenth century and belongs to the Scottish border tradition, where feuds and sudden violence were common enough to generate their own body of song. Kirkconnell is a real place in Dumfriesshire, and local tradition associates the ballad with a historical incident, though the details vary in the telling.

The text presented here appears in Hamilton Wright Mabie's A Book of Old English Ballads (1903).

I WAD I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnell lea!

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succour me!

O think na but my heart was sair
When my Love dropt and spak nae mair!
I laid her down wi' meikle care,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

As I went down the water side,
Nane but my foe to be my guide,
Nane but my foe to be my guide,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I lighted down my sword to draw,
I hackéd him in pieces sma',
I hackéd him in pieces sma',
For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my heart for evermair,
Until the day I dee!

O that I were where Helen lies
Night and day on me she cries;
Out of my bed she bids me rise,
Says, "Haste, and come to me!"

O Helen fair! O Helen chaste!
If I were with thee, I were blest,
Where thou lies low and takes thy rest,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I wad my grave were growing green,
A winding-sheet drawn ower my een,
And I in Helen's arms lying,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I wad I were where Helen lies!
Night and day on me she cries,
And I am weary of the skies,
Since my Love died for me.

Colophon

From A Book of Old English Ballads, edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie, with illustrations by George Wharton Edwards (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1903).

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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