A plaintive song, so strangely sweet and old,
That all my soul within itself would fold
And gently keep so quaint a melody,
That like a bird’s its notes of liquid gold
Might oft repeat their sweetness unto me.
A tale of joyless splendor long ago,
Of wedded lady and of loveless woe,
How she to soothe her sick heart’s misery
Cradled in vines her little child, and so
Sang of dear love beneath a greenwood tree.