The Nightingale, the Valkyrie and Raven, and Other Ballads

Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
by GEORGE BORROW
London: printed for private circulation
1913
Copyright in the United States of America by Houghton , Mifflin and Co. for Clement Shorter .
I know where stands a Castellaye, Its turrets are so fairly gilt; With silver are its gates inlaid, Its walls of marble stone are built.
Within it stands a linden tree, With lovely leaves its boughs are hung, Therein doth dwell a nightingale, And sweetly moves that bird its tongue.
A gallant knight came riding by, He heard its dulcet ditty ring; And sorely, sorely, wondered he At midnight hour that it should sing.
“And hear, thou little Nightingale, If thou to me wilt sing a lay, Thy feathers I’ll with gold bedeck, Thy neck with costly pearls array.”
“With golden feathers others lure, Such gifts for me have value slight; I am a strange and lonely bird, But little known to mortal wight.”
“And thou, a strange wild bird thou be, Whom other mortals little know; Yet hunger pinches thee, and cold, When falls the cruel winter snow.”