University of Virginia Library

Fair ladies, give me leave to sing:
God will I may die serving you
And finding ever some sweet thing
To praise your beauty and renew
The soft enchantment of your love:
Now let my singing please your ears,
Or gentle pity in you move,
Bringing your eyes the grace of tears,
Yet never grieving you too sore
With any lay of mine or tale;
Yea so: for I shall say no more
Singing a fair thing, ere I fail,
Of lovers and a nightingale.

In Brittany a goodly town
Is Bon, and there indeed befell
What I shall show, and had renown.
Two knights who loved each other well
Through many a year were come to dwell
In that fair town at length; good fame
In all France very wide and far
They twain had earned for deeds of war;
And their whole living had no blame
Of any, but before and then
Right noble seemed they to all men.

Now this befell, and was the fate:
One of those knights wed with his hand
A lady, who was fair and great—
Yea, rather, throughout all that land
Fairest and greatest in good sooth:
In all the riches of sweet youth
She was quite perfectly arrayed,
With every grace that flowers have
Of spring, or beauty that a maid
May have or that a man may crave
To look on for his love. Great pride
It was to woo and win that dame;
Yea, so to take her for man's bride
It was a thing for which knights came
Full many and from far and wide
In France; but soon they all had shame
Because of this one of renown
Who came and took her for his own.

How shall I say she was so fair?
But truly God did her compose
Of the same colours as the rose,
Which of all flowers he does declare
The fairest: this way she was fair:
First pale she was, all delicate—
Like the first sweetest leaf that shows
Frail texture, and lets penetrate
Through its pure secret, to the flows
Of inner feelings intricate
That change and glow,—so was she, too,
Pale and most tender; you might trace
The heart and all its yearnings through
Her virgin colour: as she grew,
The perfect inner soul began
To rise to many a purple place
Of blushes on her changing face,
Or on her neck that shamed a swan
Or snow for white: at length her skin
Was all fair fading, all fine hue;
And her eyes held the fairest blue
That is not in God's heaven above.
She was a goodly bride to win!

She wedded ere she knew what love
Can and doth do; what right he hath
To rule in all; to change and move
All things that are; to make a path
For all hearts whither they shall go:
She wedded ere she well could know.

And, alas! for it did befall
Of sad fate to that gentle dame,
She could not love with love at all
The husband to whose hand she came;
But love the rather did intend
A thing most crooked; day by day
See knew not of his subtle way,
Thought truth and cared not to defend
Her heart with any sort of arm;
So day by day grew up the harm.
That other knight, her husband's friend
Seemed fair unto her eyes; and fain
Her heart grew of his sight, till pain
And tears it was to miss his smile
That seemed such healing; for no fear
Bade her withhold when he was near
Her heart; but sweetest was the while
He, sitting nigh, touched her almost,
Or gold edge of his garment crost
Her own robe; no doubt did defile
Her thought, to think that there was sin,
Or that in such way could begin
Love's ill; but precious seemed the eve,
When so they sat, and he was singing
Some song to bid her bide the night
In peace; the music, too, would leave
Soft sighing echoes, 'mid the clinging
Of many a balm of rich delight,
Stored in the soul through that fair hour
—The purples of some closing flower,
Thin distant scents of thyme or musk
Faded or finished far away
'Mid the dim blightings of the dusk.
And so, in many a subtle way,
Her heart was wholly leaguered round
And poisoned with a sweet love-wound;
And so she learned love day by day.
Alas for her again! She loved
Deep in her heart, before she knew
Aught of the ill that love should do
To her own heart and him she loved.

But in good time this thought did grieve
—All for the ancient love that had
Those knights—in secret communing
Her lover: yea, it made him mad
To think that he should e'en deceive
That friend of his in such a thing.
So for his honour he was moved
To have good care; and, sorely rueing,
With many a penance he reproved
His heart, and sought some straight undoing
Of all this toil love's craft had made;
Who held both of them in his hand;
Whose fingers were like fetters laid
About their hearts. And to withstand
Truly in this design, he plann'd
That he would seek no more her face
To see, nor covet to draw near
For sake of her in any place:
And this he vowed, with many a tear,
To do in all faith for a year.

Fair ladies, think not any shame;
For love ye know hath longing feet,
Yea, it hath ever been the fame—
To walk in strange paths of deceit;
I pray you, therefore, think no shame;
For surely it must be the same
As long as love: so be content;
And I shall set me to repeat
The whole thing for your ravishment,
And truly, for the tale is sweet.

The houses were together quite;
The roofs and all the window places
Drew nigh with yearning to unite;
They were quite like two lovers' faces,
Leaving just space enough for sighs
And fair love looks and soft replies;
You could just see the blue above,
You were just far enough for breath
Indeed, or near enough for love;
There lay a little turf beneath
Where a few sickly flowers grew,
Chilled by the shadows of the eaves,
Warmed by the light that trembled through;
A rose all white and with no leaves,
Slender and like a maid that grieves,
And other flowers one or two.

But round about and from the sides,
At every moment you could hear
A pleasant noise of wind that glides
Among thick boughs; for very near
There was a garden, and a wood
Full of sweet-scented trees that stood
Shivering for pleasure in the sun,
Whose shadows rustled on the wall;
There through the day, one after one
The sweet birds sang till even-fall;
And then they ceased, and the night long,
Sang that one sweetest of them all—
The nightingale, O many a song,
Or all one song that could not pall
Of love luxurious and long.

And heavy hazel boughs shut in
The souls and scents of all the flowers,
The noon, the night and the fair hours;
And kept the place all dim within,
A pleasant place for love's sweet sin.
The noon fell almost to twilight
Under the heavy hazel boughs;
And the great shadow of each house
Growing made dark the other quite;
There the dim time was very sweet;
And hours between the noon and night
Were slow to pass, with lagging feet
And wings full-loaded; tarried late,
Till long fair fingers from the deep
Dark wood came forth to separate
Leaves, lights from shades and love from sleep,
And the moon, like a dreamed-of face
Seen gradually in the dark,
Grew up and filled the silent place
Between those houses wan and stark.

After a year that she was wed
And had well striven with this love,
Thought shame of it, well purposèd
To slay it, yet, for all she strove,
Loved with a love she could not quell;
After a year, that lady fell
Quite weak in heart because of it;
She was like one on whom some spell
Ill and mysterious hath lit
To work great harm; she could not tell
Her beads at night the holy way
Her wont, nor any more compel
Her pining feeble heart to pray;
But silently she used the day,
Mourning within, and weeping kept
The night, and scarcely now she slept.

One night in the full summer's tide,
—Throughout the house no sort of stir,
—For sleep lay heavily on all
Though love most heavily on her,
She left her lord's bed; from his side
Rose softly, with no thought to fall
Indeed to any sin; but all
To quench and quell the heart she had,
The heat within that made her mad.

She threw the casement open quite,
And let the summer air come in:
Have you not stood, the summer night
At windows; felt with soft delight
The air come from the balmy land
Play in your bosom with no sin,
Play in your bosom like a hand?
She stood and felt it on her brow,
Like a kiss straying here and there,
Like light lips playing in the hair;
She felt it on her neck, and now
Creeping through every loosened fold
Of the night garment, more and more
To slake her body with some cold
Sweet touch of dews it thirsted for.
The night so softly treated her,
And, fair and fond, the moon so sought
To lure with smiling; every stir,
Or breath, or sound, or silence, taught
So pure a peace, they cheated her
Almost of bitterness and thought;
They strove to heal the heaviness
And that most secret sore distress
Of her long ailment for love's sake;
And all the night-sounds could not make
Her fear for all the loneliness;
Nay, for hard by her in the glade
Of hazels was the nightingale;
And his known singing did not fail,
Like a fount babbling in the shade,
Or music of familiar tale.
All the sweet day things were in sight;
And, with the wandering of her gaze,
She sought them now in the changed light,
Knew them in each inconstant phase,
Found them in each familiar place;
She counted all the flowers plain
Under the house;—she could see quite
The frail rose-petals with the stain
Of their scarce love-tint in each vein,
Tender and shrinking, almost white:
There had she looked on them for hours;
It was like dreaming the most sweet;
A flower she was among those flowers,
And soft light touchings of the air
For lips of love seemed with full greet
Kissing around her, faint and fair,
Over her bosom and her hair.

But it befell that she was stirred
Out of the stillness of her dreaming;
A sudden shadow crost the streaming
Moonlight: some faint sound was heard;
Sure one with step or touch did scare
The deep night musings. She aware,
With sweet forebodings that went through
Her secret soul, scarce her eyes moved
For dread, until she saw and knew
The face of him who was so loved.
He was before her in full light;
And the great steady moonbeams made
The narrow window-ledges bright
About him; but a thickened shade
Hid all the chamber; he was leant
Such way against the inner wall
Deep in the dark, that scarce at all
She saw the uncertain lineament
Of a dim drapery that let fall
About him many a changeful fold;
Maybe sometime his heart was told
That she had felt his look on her;
He was as one that could not stir;
Their eyes met: then they seemed to touch
At length with eyes and lips and face;
For soul yearned forth to soul with such
A might of yearning, all the space
Seemed to yield fast between them, yea
Grew rather to a perfect way.

O 'twas a feast in every feeling
So long a-hungered; sudden balm,
All a long fever slowly healing
And reaching quickly with its calm
Each inmost lurking place of pain,
That knew those lovers, seeing plain
Each other after so long loss;
Eye sated eye, face answered face;
And so their looks did interlace
They made a shining path across
The moonlight in that silent place:
For heaped-up floods of long desire
Were loosened, and there was no power
In all that tender midnight hour
To hold or stand against them,—nay,
But rather all things did conspire,
Moonlight and nightingale and flower,
In a sweet aid to help that they
Should yet meet love, cheating the day
And all their niggard fate's hard stress.
So the night found for them a breast
Of dreams and dews, and safe indeed
Under her hair's dark shining tress,
Full of sweet quietness and rest,
Where they might have their love and lead
Its luscious hour without molest.

They both were pale, and bore long trace
Of sorrow; each one read with fears,
Looking upon the other's face,
Great written histories of weeping,
Great woven tapestries of tears;
Saw the dim stains love cannot hide
Under each wan white eyelid keeping
Piteous record; found out beside
Full many a passage of plain teen,
And in a writing true and wet
Of what heart's pain and feeling's fret
Through the long desolateness had been;
For, lo! on either face was cast
Some shade of the long bitter past.

They lingered, learning all these tender
Secrets, and loved them as they learned;
So each to each, with sweet surrender
Of such sad lore as was hard earned
Through so much labour of long grieving,
Yielded at length past all deceiving
The soul's bare surface; quite revealed
Its inward secret of remorse
And yearning, that had grown but worse
Lying all fearfully concealed.
But soon their weak hearts did revive
With fertile bliss; and love did thrive
A pure and spiritual flower
Fit to inhabit the soft soils
And regions in that holy hour
Of midnight, fain indeed to live
For subtle and mysterious joys;
A tender flower, whose sense recoils
From coarser climes of the day's noise,
And sights and shreds of sunlight. Then,
Their souls made compact to renew,
Apart and secret from all men,
Love-interchangings long and true;
And love's own mystery was done,
That silent hour, a way that none
But the nightingale and the moonlight knew.

Love lasted through the summer time;
And had a language all its own,
Of separate sighs and wordless rhyme,
Of communing looks and kisses thrown;
And had no need for lustier clime
Than the unearthly midnight; grown
Estranged at length from all the things
Whose life sleep steals, but nigh of kin
To the dim unviewed hoverings
Of sweet things shadowy and thin
That traverse moonlight with pale wings
Of amber, when on blinded eyes
Of men some heavy dream-death lies.
—For, soon as, with all stealthy creep
Of rays, the moon came forth again
To touch each hostile sight with sleep
In aid of lovers, not in vain
Released, they two did haste to reap
The great fresh harvest of each heart,
Grown up through lonely hours unculled:
Their lives indeed day tore apart
And left a-dying; but each night
Came just in saving time, annulled
The hard day's spell and bade re-plight
Love's broken bonds with new delight.
No moment longer could they sit
With day-long agonies that strove
To bring on night desiring it,
Ere from those window-places, lit
With smiling of the moon, they wove
Some mesh of intermingling looks
That felt and fastened to each place
Of beauty, crept to and took hold
In all the shadowy nestling nooks
Dimmest where love could ever trace
Love; and in measure manifold
They soon paid back all stolen peace;
And with new presence soon consoled
All pining; till the whole disease
Of sorrow, in each sundered breast
Begotten, was divinely cured
With rapture of most new and blest
Communion. Such sweet time, assured
Of all love's joy, they could consume
Serenely in a long-drawn leisure,
Fulfilled with many a tranquil bliss,
Born as mere transitory bloom
Upon a branch, for the mere pleasure
Of fragrance; many a tiny way,
Almost as pleasant as a kiss,
They found for making a sweet play
Of love; they had continual treasure
Heaped in their hearts; things fair to say
With looks or tokens; to relate
All quaint sad reveries of the thought
In loneliness, and through what state
The time had brought them; what new task
Or pastime loneliness had taught
Their fretting fingers; so to ask
And so to render little treats
Of trusting. Often they had wrought,
Seeking such precious toil as cheats
Love-languishment, some fair device
In work of tapestry most fine;
Or on a scroll dainty and nice
Set forth most delicate conceits,
Written in many a pleasant line
Of sweet love-poesy: and ways
Full easy found they to exchange
Their gifts and messages athwart
The white path of the thin moon-rays,—
For love did strengthen every art,
And, with his charm, subtle and strange,
Prospered them, as he doth always,—
Yea, so they learned a pleasant skill
To cast those things each unto each,
And could e'en send them at their will:
And truly they failed not to reach
Fair interchange with wafted sign
Of kissing, or prolonged embrace
Of looks; such way they could combine
That many a moment they half felt
Touchings sweet; as of face on face,
When lips drain lips and eyelids melt
And meeting tears make soft the place.

And, more and more, this thing became
To them a custom, the most sweet
In all the heart; and so the dame
Beloved it, she forgot to chide
Her heart for all this fond deceit;
Yea, she forgot or cast aside
Such thought and that it was half sin.

No man can otherwise abide
In life but love must enter in:
This thing—do what she would—God knew
She could not help with all her care,
Nor change; for love will have his due;—
And before God she was most fair,
And wise and good in all her way:
Himself shall pardon and forbear
In all things, as His mercy may.

So when the night was, and her lord
Lay in the bed beside her sleeping,
She made no stir nor uttered word,
But, while the nightingale was heard,
And all the tender spells were keeping
Silence and safety, rose and went
To greet that lover; and so stayed,
Nor thought that many an hour was spent,
Ere she returned once more and laid
Her down beside her lord, with fear
He might have sought her and been wrath
Not finding her; yet, all so dear
And needful are the needs love hath,
That many a time she rose again
And left him; who, when he perceived
She was so oft away, was fain
To chide her somewhat; but believed
Her true, and that she had at most
Some fantasy of wayward mood,
To see, maybe, the trees dark-leaved
By the pale moonlight shadows crost,
Or sickness of some hidden brood
Of nameless longings unallayed,
Wherein he nothing might avail,
But whereunto some soothing made
The still night and the nightingale.

She was so fair indeed and good,
And to his word in all so meek,
In heart he could not, by the Rood,
Find chiding for her harsh to speak;
But he did pray her, for the fear
He had she might attain to ill
Through some chance spell of all the drear
Strange magic of the night, to still
Her sad unrest and wanton will;
Yea, that she should not, for that bird,
Forsake her lord so and her sleep;
Whereto she promised with fair word;
And yet from love she could not keep.

But, on one day, he came, withal,
And did bespeak her otherwise—
Reproaching, and with wrath in all
He said,—that he indeed was wise
Of her whole doing and deceit,
And of that love she had so sought
To cover with all seeming meet;
And for this wrong of will and thought
She did his life, he bade her take
Fair shame; because himself was true
In all his way with her, nor brake
His faith at all.—This he would do,
He said, because of his love's sake,—
He would still bear with her, and hide
Her fault from men—yea, still renew
Some trust in her; no more to chide
Or tell her of that thing again;
If she would truly do her part
For right, and spare not toil or pain
In striving till she freed her heart
From all this grievous bond and stain.

O when his voice that way she heard,
Alas, she could do nought but weep;
For very shame of her deceit
She fell down in a sorrow deep;
Amid her tears she spake no word
And looked no look that could but meet
With him her husband; yet she quite
Desired to touch him and entreat
The most of pardon that he might
For the great wrong of will and thought
She e'en had done his life; yea, now
She purposed with herself to smite
And slay this evil love had brought
Into her heart; and, with a vow
To Mary without sin, she said
She would make true her living now,
And of her love make recompense
To him her husband; so she prayed,
Through her whole grief and penitence,
God might forgive her that offence.

But lo, as the man went away,
He took into his heart that day
To do a hard thing; for he hailed
His servants all, yea, the whole band
Who served with willing heart and hand,
And briefly spake to them, nor failed
To tell them all there was a cause
Of sore displeasure and unrest
To her, whom each with service best
Of love and honour, holding dear
Did serve; wherefore, should each man pause
In his own labour and forbear
From doing other far or near,
Until he might bring death to pass
On such as wrought this ill. Alas,
For then he said the nightingale,
He was the doer of the thing;
For that no fowl at all he was,
But a magician who, for bale
And mischief on them all to bring,
Out of his witcheries did sing
So sweetly faining all the nights
That he could lure with his delights
Their mistress from her lord and sleep;
Yea, for the singing he did keep
All night was truly not of bird,
For sweetness new and magical
Such as no man had ever heard,
But an enchantment was it all.

And so, he said, was come to ail
The gentle lady whom all loved,
Yea, she was grown quite wan and pale;
All men had seen it as he told,
How she became as one sore moved
With witcheries; disease she had,
A kind that no man could unfold
With any leechcraft; fallen and sad
She was of face and faint of eye;
Her head like any rose's head
When it is even come to die;
Her hand too, like a dwindled leaf
In autumn time, quite thin and wan;
You might see all the tender thread
Of the veins through, it was so thin;—
And this came all of some mischief
And not her fault; for sure no man
Stood there to give her word of sin.

He said too, he was full of fear
And very heavy sorrowing,
To think some ill fate might be near
Unto them all; but most to bring
Great woe upon his house and shame,
Or losing of his wife so dear.
But having heard, all in God's name
They joined them to him with a will;
And did devote themselves to do
The thing he said; yea, in God's name,
That no man should take rest until
So fared he, that he brought or slew
Some certain way that bird of ill
And all his magic overthrew.
Then took they many a kind of arm
That might such quest of theirs assure;
Nor spared they any sort of lure
Man makes, that he may take or harm
In any way of sport the free
Wild birds that are in field or tree:
And, lest some chance should be to save,
By all his swiftness or his craft,
That bird from death through snare or shaft
Wingèd of skill from bow,—they gave
A care made perfect through long toil
To make a lime most deadly sure,
Yea, so that never bird could foil
The death of it; for without cure
The touch and poison of it were,
And the clinging of it most sore:
And, truly, this was such a snare
As fowler never had before.

And he who moved them to this thing,
He led them; and, when all was made,
He tarried not their steps to bring
Into the garden and the glade
Where that sweet bird was wont to sing:
There soon, with voices harsh and rude,
They startled all the tender shade,
And broods of mysteries that lay
Of long time in that solitude,
Woven among the leaves alway:
For there he brought them on that day,
In a great troop and multitude,
The nightingale to take or slay.

In truth they had small care or grace;
They trode down all the tender flowers,
Of whose short sweetness was that place
Made fit to serve the short sweet hours
That pass and come no more in life;
They wrought a ruin in short space;
And hasted in unseemly strife
With the fair boughs and branches all,
And cast their leaves down on the ground,
And wounded them with many a wound,
And many fair trees they made fall.
But very soon it did not fail,
Before they had done half their care,
And purpose, that they had in snare
That craftless bird the nightingale;
Who was so free from stain of sin
That way they thought that he was in,
He fell to them quite unaware
It was his death they sought to win.
They took and brought him in their hands,
The life yet in him, to their lord;
Who, when he had him, with fair word
Praised their good care of his commands;
Then each man went forth to his lands.

But straight into the house came he,
That good knight, when the men were gone;
Yea, he was even in a haste,
And sought his wife where she might be;
For yet the thought of the wrong done
To him in time so little past
Lay surely bitter at his heart;
So, when he found her there alone,
He spake her thus and without art:
See, wife, he said, here is that bird
—For well I trow that this is he—
Who strangely and so long hath stirred
Thy rest in nights past; yea, full sore,
With all his song and witchery,
Hath troubled all thy sleep and me;
But now I think he shall no more,
Nor may a song of his be heard,
For I have taken him in snare;
From him and evil everywhere
May we have peace for evermore.

So with that word, yea, as he spake,
He took him in his hands, and hard
He wrung him, so the neck he brake
And took the life away with ease;
And cast him to her afterward;
She could no way to save him make,
The bird fell dead upon her knees.

She was in middle of her grief;
Striving to take her leave of love,
And weeping all the while she strove;
But this new woe stole like a thief
Her heart, and the sad power to move
Her tears: first took she scarce belief
That it was truly and indeed
The singing nightingale she had;
Yea, no time had she seen him lead
Life in the body of a bird;
And for his song, holy and sad
And never with another heard,
Angel of God him might she call
Or something not to die at all.

She took him; in her hand she took
His body; and the life was scant
Within it, and his blown plumes shook
All in a palsy wofully;
In his breath too there was no pant,
And no stir at his heart nor look
Of pleasant living in his eye;
Surely his soul had broken plight
With sweet frail life and left to die
That relic. To such wretched sight
Her tears came quickly, and the thought
It almost was her love, so brought
Before her slain and faded quite
To wanness and sad autumn hue,
The death colour of leaves: she knew
Thereby, that, in her life, no more
Should be that summer colour of love
To purple it; and all the sore
Of thought within her filled with pain,
And grew such burden that she strove
If, with lips seeking, she might gain
—Yea, even out of that bird's bill,
A part of death. But, in the end,
She was turned to another will;
She thought it would be sweet to send
Unto her lover such last sign
Of sorrow, and that they must kill
Both of their hearts and unto deaths
Indeed quite equal them resign;
For that the harder part and fate
Of life prest with prevailing breaths
Bitter upon them, governed, gained,
And laid such snare for all that late
Their fairest, most indulged, their near
Real seeming dream, that now remained
For this no longer any state
Or place at all,—but love was clear
A thing unrealmed, a prey attained
By the hard fastening hounds of grief:
So she would send that bird—their dear
Familiar—as a sign of brief
Sad parting and of death all shared.

And now to do this she prepared,
And made soon, fair with many a lace,
A little wallet tapestried
Within of stuffs the richest dyed;
Full daintily she did enchase
The outer part; and worked it all
With broideries symbolical;
And, in the midst, she wrought a place
For that slain bird; the body there
Lay fitly covered up and prest
Upon warm purples; in a nest
It seemed, wings folded smooth and fair,
And the head sleeping on the breast
A grievous gift was this indeed
For love to give.—But, with all speed,
She did fulfil the thing and dare
Its piteousness: it was conveyed
That trackless way which love had freed
Across the unconfessing air.

Then she said sorrow was all made,
To fill her life's long after-year
With the full burden she might bear
Of loneliness and of regret,
And sharp thoughts with an inward fret
Gnawing some remnant of a Past,
Which should not give them ease while yet
At heart the very life might last.
She thought how wave of water feeds
Upon some oasis of earth,
Where hath been greenness and the birth
Of flowers;—how it takes the reeds
One after one, and with its lips
Sucks in the lilies, makes sweet prey
Of all at leisure, and in sips
Dissolves the whole of it away:
She deemed that it should be like this
With those thoughts ever in her heart,
Feeding upon each separate bliss
That once grew in the fragrant part
Of life called love: she would find store
Of faded relic and perfume,
To the most waste and meanest bloom
That love's great time for her once bore;
And sure the heart should be no more
Ere such as this might all consume.

She thought, too, how that flower the Rose,
—After that it hath filled all June
Full of its beauty, as man knows,—
How it doth e'en begin to lose
Softly its colour; and then soon
To let the leaves and petals fall,
But with such falling gradual
As you may count them one by one,
Yea, till it droppeth of them all:
And with her heart so it should be,
Yea, with that flower of her heart;—
Full long should be the atrophy
And falling of it part from part;
And, for it was in the true core
And richest soil of memory,
Beauty of it should not depart,
Nor fragrance of it be quite o'er,
Till death's own snow for evermore
Were fairly laid on all the heart.

Ah, when the knight, her lover, found
And knew that last of gifts from her;
Such time now as he slow unwound
The broidered bindings one by one,
His heart within made many a stir
Trembling, many a time it swooned
With half foreboding what was done
To their hearts equal: soon he read,
And could not fail to understand
The tender silken hieroglyph;
And knew it written with her hand,
That both had better have been dead
Than to have loved so; and that life
Had used up sweet and had instead
No balm but death.—O then he sought
Indeed for death, that balm,—quite caught
And conquered of a great mad sorrow
That would no healing, while he thought
And knew that there should be no morrow
For him to look once on her face,
Or worship her in any place;
That rather, with his heart's great sore
Of love, he should go far and near
About the world for evermore,
And get no joy from year to year!

Ladies, when he had thought and wept
And gazed on that gift many a day,
For it he found a casket bright
Of finest gold; therein he kept
That treasure, and with him alway:
And then he went with many a knight
To save the tomb where Jesu slept:
In Palestine, so is the Lay,
He fell and died in holy fight.