Taillefer the jongleur, sang well his lay
And laughed as he flung up the lance he bore,
When the arrows of Normandy won the day.
Duke William in England proclaimed his sway;
King Harold lay dead; the battle was o’er;
The Saxons fought hard in the fatal fray,
But the arrows of Normandy won the day.
SHELLEY.
A bird of song, far soaring to its home,
Over the sea-waves cleaves with tireless wing
The cloudless blue; but, swiftly gathering,
A storm breaks up the crystal into foam
That dashes mountain-high ’gainst Heaven’s dome
Now darkened. Down the aerial harpies fling
The sweet-voiced minstrel and sad surges sing
The dirge of death with sorrow burdensome.
O Heart of Hearts! high-beating o’er the world
From whom fell sweetest song that unto man
Told love and life, since life and love began;
Like some lone bird thou wert by Nature hurled
Into the restless jaws of death’s devouring sea
With still a Song of Songs to bear thee company.
MORNING.
The gray of dawn peeps up behind night’s folds,
While darkling clouds yet dim the distant sky;
Long miles of mist disperse along the wolds,
And from the dewy boughs the songsters fly.
The feathered minstrels of the opening day,
Refreshed by long and undisturbed repose,
Arrange the plumes that night has turned astray,
And all their ruffled beauties now disclose.
The late, lone bat, like some lost refugee,
Seeks dark security from pressing morn,
And scatters, as it hides in hollow tree,
Bright butterflies that soon the scene adorn.