“Good sooth, I am no gipsy, tho’ thou biddest me begone;
I am the proudest king’s son that e’er the sun shone on.
“I have goodly acres, and fields so fair and broad;
I have serving maidens, who shall spread thy board.
“I have a goodly garden of herbs a-growing green,
Where thou, my love, shalt wander, out and in.
“I have three dappled palfreys a-tossing of their crest,
That thou and I, my sweetheart, may ride among the best.”
When the wedding now was over, and all the feasting done,
Then asked the lovely maiden his lands to look upon.
“Where are thy goodly acres, and where thy lands so broad?
And where are all thy serving-maids, for us shall spread the board?”
“I have no goodly acres, I have no lands so broad;
And never have I eaten at an honest man his board.
I have no goodly garden of herbs a-growing green;
Thro’ all men’s courts I wander, out and in.
“I have no dappled palfreys, a-tossing of their crest;
But only my long hunting-knife, of all my goods the best!”
And she may laugh, the lady, or she may weep for woe,
But the gipsy she must follow, wherever he may go.