Ballads, Lyrics and Poems of Old France | Page 7

rings we changed, the suns that set,
The woods fulfilled with sun and
shade?
The fountains that were musical
By many an ancient
trysting tree -
Marie, have you forgotten all?
Do you remember,
love Marie?
Christine, do you remember yet
Your room with scents and roses gay?

My garret--near the sky 'twas set -
The April hours, the nights of
May?
The clear calm nights--the stars above
That whispered they
were fairest seen
Through no cloud-veil? Remember, love!
Do you
remember, love Christine?
Louise is dead, and, well-a-day!
Marie a sadder path has ta'en;
And
pale Christine has passed away
In southern suns to bloom again.

Alas! for one and all of us -
Marie, Louise, Christine forget;
Our
bower of love is ruinous,
And I alone remember yet.
MUSETTE.
HENRI MURGER. 1850
Yesterday, watching the swallows' flight
That bring the spring and
the season fair,
A moment I thought of the beauty bright
Who loved

me, when she had time to spare;
And dreamily, dreamily all the day,

I mused on the calendar of the year,
The year so near and so far
away,
When you were lief, and when I was dear.
Your memory has not had time to pass;
My youth has days of its
lifetime yet;
If you only knocked at the door, alas,
My heart would
open the door, Musette!
Still at your name must my sad heart beat;

Ah Muse, ah maiden of faithlessness!
Return for a moment, and
deign to eat
The bread that pleasure was wont to bless.
The tables and curtains, the chairs and all,
Friends of our pleasure that
looked on our pain,
Are glad with the gladness of festival,
Hoping
to see you at home again;
Come, let the days of their mourning pass,

The silent friends that are sad for you yet;
The little sofa, the great
wine glass -
For know you had often my share, Musette.
Come, you shall wear the raiment white
You wore of old, when the
world was gay,
We will wander in woods of the heart's delight
The
whole of the Sunday holiday.
Come, we will sit by the wayside inn,

Come, and your song will gain force to fly,
Dipping its wing in the
clear and thin
Wine, as of old, ere it scale the sky.
Musette, who had scarcely forgotten withal
One beautiful dawn of the
new year's best,
Returned at the end of the carnival,
A flown bird,
to a forsaken nest.
Ah faithless and fair! I embrace her yet,
With no
heart-beat, and with never a sigh;
And Musette, no longer the old
Musette,
Declares that I am no longer I.
Farewell, my dear that was once so dear,
Dead with the death of our
latest love;
Our youth is laid in its sepulchre,
The calendar stands
for a stone above.
'Tis only in searching the dust of the days,
The
ashes of all old memories,
That we find the key of the woodland
ways

That lead to the place of our paradise.

THE THREE CAPTAINS.
All beneath the white-rose tree
Walks a lady fair to see,
She is as
white as the snows,
She is as fair as the day:
From her father's
garden close
Three knights have ta'en her away.
He has ta'en her by the hand,
The youngest of the three -
'Mount
and ride, my bonnie bride,
On my white horse with me.'
And ever they rode, and better rode,
Till they came to Senlis town,

The hostess she looked hard at them
As they were lighting down.
'And are ye here by force,' she said,
'Or are ye here for play?
From
out my father's garden close
Three knights me stole away.
'And fain would I win back,' she said,
'The weary way I come;
And
fain would see my father dear,
And fain go maiden home.'
'Oh, weep not, lady fair,' said she,
'You shall win back,' she said,

'For you shall take this draught from me
Will make you lie for dead.'
'Come in and sup, fair lady,' they said,
'Come busk ye and be bright;

It is with three bold captains
That ye must be this night.'
When they had eaten well and drunk,
She fell down like one slain:

'Now, out and alas! for my bonny may
Shall live no more again.'
'Within her father's garden stead
There are three white lilies;
With
her body to the lily bed,
With her soul to Paradise.'
They bore her to her father's house,
They bore her all the three,

They laid her in her father's close,
Beneath the white-rose tree.
She had not lain a day, a day,
A day but barely three,
When the may
awakes, 'Oh, open, father,
Oh, open the door for me.

''Tis I have lain for dead, father,
Have lain the long days three,
That
I might maiden come again
To my mother and to thee.'
THE BRIDGE OF DEATH.
'The dance is on the Bridge of Death
And who will dance with me?'

'There's never a man of living men
Will dare to dance with thee.'
Now Margaret's gone within her bower
Put ashes in her hair,
And
sackcloth on her bonny breast,
And on her shoulders bare.
There came a knock to her bower door,
And blithe she let him in;
It
was her brother from the wars,
The dearest of her kin.
'Set gold within your hair, Margaret,
Set gold within your hair,
And
gold upon