'Tis true, he, like this maid, was young,
And gifted with a tuneful tongue!
His looks [Errata: locks], like her's, were bright and fair,
But light and laughing was his eye;
The prophecy of future care
In those thin, helmet lids we spy,
Veiling mild orbs, of changeful hue,
Where auburn half subsides in blue!
Lord Fauconberg, canst thou divine
What is the curve, or what the line,
That makes this girl, like lightning, send
Looks of our long lamented friend?
If Richard liv'd, that sorcery spell
Quickly his lion-heart would quell:
He never could her glance descry,
And any wish'd-for boon deny!
She's weeping too!--most strangely wrought
By workings of another's thought!
She knows no English; yet I speak
That language, and her paling cheek
With watery floods is overcast.--
Fair maid, we talk of times long past;
A friend we often mourn in vain--
A knight in distant battle slain,
Whose bones had moulder'd in the earth
Full many a year before thy birth.
He fed our ears with songs of old,
And one was of a heart of gold,--
A native ditty I would fain,
But never yet could hear again.