Ballad of Jamie Allan

there is a hawthorn on a hill
there is a hawthorn growing
it set its roots against the wind
the worrying wind that’s blowing
its berries are red its blossom so white
I thought that it was snowing

there is a hawthorn by a wall
that looks down to the valley
its berries are red its thorns are sharp
it’s where we said we’d marry
its berries are red its blossom is white
and the hail makes sharp weather
without her now I’ll make my bed
in the bleeding heather

come with me oh come with me
come with me my darling
the berries are red the thorns are sharp
and the corbies are craawing
don’t send me out don’t cut me down
don’t exile me my darling
the thorns turn red kill the blossom dead
and the tethered wind is snarling

there is a hawthorn by a wall
that looks down to the valley
its berries are red its thorns are sharp
it’s where we said we’d marry
its berries are red its blossom is white
and the hail makes sharp weather
without her now I’ll make my bed
in the bleeding heather

Tom Pickard (b. 1946)

from Ballad of Jamie Allan (2007)

© Tom Pickard 2007 and posted here by the poet’s kind permission

Published by Flood Editions, Chicago

[Please note: it is an infringement of copyright to repost this poem unless you have the permission of the rights holders.]


Jamie Allan (1734–1810) was a gypsy piper who lived in the wild borderlands of England and Scotland. He played for dukes and countesses and hung out with thieves and vagrants. In 1803 he was sentenced to the gallows for horse-theft; reprieved, he rotted in Durham Jail until he died in 1810, an aged and physically broken man.

His story is the theme of Tom Pickard’s latest volume, a sequence as diverse as Jamie’s life; richly evocative of the Northumbrian hills, and the traditions of Northern folksong, by turns swaggering, sardonic, stark, heartbreakingly sad.

Tom Pickard is giving a reading at 5 o'clock this coming Monday at the University of Leicester (Ken Edwards Lecture Theatre 1; free admission). I’m looking forward to it.


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