Ballads, Lyrics, and Poems of Old France Part 7

When she had heard his bitter rede That was his old true love, She sat and wept within her bower, And moaned even as a dove.

She rose up from her window seat, And she looked out to see; Her love came riding up the street With a goodly company.

He was clad on with Venice gold, Wrought upon cramoisie, His yellow hair shone like the sun About his fair body.

'Now shall I call him blossomed branch That has ill knots therein?

Or shall I call him basil plant, That comes of an evil kin?

'Oh, I shall give him goodly names, My sword of damask fine; My silver flower, my bright-winged bird, Where go you, lover mine?'

'I go to marry my new bride, That I bring o'er the down; And you shall be her bridal maid, And hold her bridal crown.'

'When you come to the bride chamber Where your fair maiden is, You'll tell her I was fair of face, But never tell her this,

'That still my lips were lips of love, My kiss love's spring-water, That my love was a running spring, My breast a garden fair.

'And you have kissed the lips of love And drained the well-water, And you have spoiled the running spring, And robbed the fruits so fair.'

'Now he that will may scatter nuts, And he may wed that will; But she that was my old true love Shall be my true love still.'

GREEK FOLK SONGS.

IANNOULA.

ALL the maidens were merry and wed All to lovers so fair to see; The lover I took to my bridal bed He is not long for love and me.

I spoke to him and he noting said, I gave him bread of the wheat so fine, He did not eat of the bridal bread, He did not drink of the bridal wine.

I made him a bed was soft and deep, I made him a bed to sleep with me; 'Look on me once before you sleep, And look on the flower of my fair body.

'Flowers of April, and fresh May-dew, Dew of April and buds of May; Two white blossoms that bud for you, Buds that blossom before the day.'

THE TELL-TALES.

ALL in the mirk midnight when I was beside you, Who has seen, who has heard, what was said, what was done?

'Twas the night and the light of the stars that espied you, The fall of the moon, and the dawning begun.

'Tis a swift star has fallen, a star that discovers To the sea what the green sea has told to the oars, And the oars to the sailors, and they of us lovers Go singing this song at their mistress's doors.

AVE.

TWILIGHT ON TWEED.

THREE crests against the saffron sky, Beyond the purple plain, The dear remembered melody Of Tweed once more again.

Wan water from the border hills, Dear voice from the old years, Thy distant music lulls and stills, And moves to quiet tears.

Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood Fleets through the dusky land; Where Scott, come home to die, has stood, My feet returning stand.

A mist of memory broods and floats, The border waters flow; The air is full of ballad notes, Borne out of long ago.

Old songs that sung themselves to me, Sweet through a boy's day dream, While trout below the blossom'd tree Plashed in the golden stream.

Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, Fair and thrice fair you be; You tell me that the voice is still That should have welcomed me.

ONE FLOWER.

"Up there shot a lily red, With a patch of earth from the land of the dead, For she was strong in the land of the dead."

WHEN autumn suns are soft, and sea winds moan, And golden fruits make sweet the golden air, In gardens where the apple blossoms were, In these old springs before I walked alone; I pa.s.s among the pathways overgrown, Of all the former flowers that kissed your feet Remains a poppy, pallid from the heat, A wild poppy that the wild winds have sown.

Alas! the rose forgets your hands of rose; The lilies slumber in the lily bed; 'Tis only poppies in the dreamy close, The changeless, windless garden of the dead, You tend, with buds soft as your kiss that lies In over happy dreams, upon mine eyes.

METEMPSYCHOSIS.

I SHALL not see thee, nay, but I shall know Perchance, thy grey eyes in another's eyes, Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow, When through the scent of heather, faint and low, The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.

From all sweet art, and out of all 'old rhyme,'

Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me; The shadows of the beauty of all time, Carven and sung, are only shapes of thee; Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear Shall life or death bring all thy being near?

LOST IN HADES.