In the hearts of those of high degree,
And that gentle love should be decried
By its noblest champion, Chivalrie.
If the baron shall hear a whispered word
Of that fond lover's sweet minstrelsie,
That love-lorn heart and his angry sword
May some night better acquainted be.
Woe! woe! to the viper's envenomed tongue
That obeys the hest of a coward's heart,
Who tries to avenge his fancied wrong
By getting another to act his part.
Sir Hubert has lisped in the baron's ear,
When drinking wine at the evening hour,
That a minstrel clown met his daughter dear
At night in her lonely greenwood bower.
"Hush! hush! Sir Hubert, thy words are fires;
Elves are about us that hear and see,
Who may tell to the ghost of my noble sires
Of a damned blot on our pedigree."
And the baron frowned with darkened brow,
And by the bones of his fathers swore
That from that night this minstrel theou,
To his daughter would warble his love no more.


VII.

That night the minstrel sang in softer flow,
Waxing and waning soft and softer still,
Like autumn's night winds breathing loun and low,