Ballads, Lyrics and Poems of Old France | Page 8

your girdle band,
And on your breast so fair.
'For we are bidden to dance to-night,
We may not bide away;
This
one good night, this one fair night,
Before the red new day.'
'Nay, no gold for my head brother,
Nay, no gold for my hair;
It is
the ashes and dust of earth
That you and I must wear.
'No gold work for my girdle band,
No gold work on my feet;
But
ashes of the fire, my love,
But dust that the serpents eat.'

They danced across the bridge of Death,
Above the black water,

And the marriage-bell was tolled in hell
For the souls of him and her.
LE PERE SEVERE.
KING LOUIS' DAUGHTER.
BALLAD
OF THE ISLE OF FRANCE.
King Louis on his bridge is he,
He holds his daughter on his knee.

She asks a husband at his hand
That is not worth a rood of land.
'Give up your lover speedily,
Or you within the tower must lie.'
'Although I must the prison dree,
I will not change my love for thee.
'I will not change my lover fair
Not for the mother that me bare.
'I will not change my true lover
For friends, or for my father dear.'
'Now where are all my pages keen,
And where are all my serving
men?
'My daughter must lie in the tower alway,
Where she shall never see
the day.'

Seven long years are past and gone
And there has seen her never one.
At ending of the seventh year
Her father goes to visit her.
'My child, my child, how may you be?'
'O father, it fares ill with me.
'My feet are wasted in the mould,
The worms they gnaw my side so
cold.'
'My child, change your love speedily
Or you must still in prison lie.'
''Tis better far the cold to dree
Than give my true love up for thee.'
THE MILK WHITE DOE.
It was a mother and a maid
That walked the woods among,
And
still the maid went slow and sad,
And still the mother sung.
'What ails you, daughter Margaret?
Why go you pale and wan?
Is it

for a cast of bitter love,
Or for a false leman?'
'It is not for a false lover
That I go sad to see;
But it is for a weary
life
Beneath the greenwood tree.
'For ever in the good daylight
A maiden may I go,
But always on
the ninth midnight
I change to a milk white doe.
'They hunt me through the green forest
With hounds and hunting men;

And ever it is my fair brother
That is so fierce and keen.'

'Good-morrow, mother.' 'Good-morrow, son;
Where are your hounds
so good?'
Oh, they are hunting a white doe
Within the glad
greenwood.
'And three times have they hunted her,
And thrice she's won away;

The fourth time that they follow her
That white doe they shall slay.'

Then out and spoke the forester,
As he came from the wood,
'Now
never saw I maid's gold hair
Among the wild deer's blood.
'And I have hunted the wild deer
In east lands and in west;
And
never saw I white doe yet
That had a maiden's breast.'
Then up and spake her fair brother,
Between the wine and bread,

'Behold, I had but one sister,
And I have been her dead.'
'But ye must bury my sweet sister
With a stone at her foot and her
head,
And ye must cover her fair body
With the white roses and
red.'
And I must out to the greenwood,
The roof shall never shelter me;

And I shall lie for seven long years
On the grass below the hawthorn

tree.
A LADY OF HIGH DEGREE.
[I be pareld most of prise,
I ride after the wild fee.]
Will ye that I should sing
Of the love of a goodly thing,
Was no
vilein's may?
'Tis sung of a knight so free,
Under the olive tree,

Singing this lay.
Her weed was of samite fine,
Her mantle of white ermine,
Green
silk her hose;
Her shoon with silver gay,
Her sandals flowers of
May,
Laced small and close.
Her belt was of fresh spring buds,
Set with gold clasps and studs,

Fine linen her shift;
Her purse it was of love,
Her chain was the
flower thereof,
And Love's gift.
Upon a mule she rode,
The selle was of brent gold,
The bits of
silver made;
Three red rose trees there were
That overshadowed her,

For a sun shade.
She riding on a day,
Knights met her by the way,
They did her
grace;
'Fair lady, whence be ye?'
'France it is my countrie,
I come
of a high race.
'My sire is the nightingale,
That sings, making his wail,
In the wild
wood, clear;
The mermaid is mother to me,
That sings in the salt
sea,
In the ocean mere.'
'Ye come of a right good race,
And are born of a high place,
And of
high degree;
Would to God that ye were
Given unto me, being fair,

My lady and love to be.'
LOST FOR A ROSE'S SAKE.

I laved my hands,
BY the water side;
With the willow leaves
My
hands I dried.
The nightingale sung
On the bough of the tree;
Sing, sweet
nightingale,
It is well with thee.
Thou hast heart's delight,
I have sad heart's sorrow
For a false false
maid
That