George Campbell was a hard and ruthless man,
Hated and feared by most who knew him.
Dark as the Highland Hills from which he sprang,
A wild cruel streak ran through him.
But still he was a man o' wealth and property,
While I was a landless cotter,
And therein lay the seeds of grief and tragedy,
For I was in love with Campbell's daughter.

Isla Campbell was as fair as her father was dark,
As different as the night is frae the mornin'.
Not before or since have I met a truer heart,
Or one that was so full o' yearnin'.
She hungered after love and she hungered after life,
And what I knew o' both I gladly taught her,
For soon I was resolved to make her my wife,
For I was in love with Campbell's daughter.

So I put on my best clothes and to Campbell's house I went,
The lion in his own den to beard him,
For Isla would not marry me without his consent.
She knew him too well, aye, and she feared him.
When I asked for his consent, he damned me all to hell
For a shiftless and landless pauper.
"Afore I'd let her marry you," he said, "I'd kill her myself.
You shall never have my daughter."

He struck me in the face and he knocked me to the ground,
And he cursed me as I lay there bleedin'.
Darkness filled my eyes as more blows came raining down,
I could feel my consciousness recedin'.
Then I heard an awful cry and I lifted up my head,
And beheld a hellish scene o' bloody slaughter.
Wi' a long knife in his throat, George Campbell lay dead
And behind him stood Isla, his daughter.

When Isla came tae trial, on the Bible she swore
That she struck to stop her father's killing anger,
But the prosecution painted her as a wanton and a whore.
The jury a' agreed and they hanged her.
A stolen kiss or two and an unjust early grave
Was the little that my hopeless love had brought her.
Until my dying breath I shall curse the day
When I fell in love with Campbell's daughter.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 8-Aug-02.