“O, Wind of Night, soft-creeping,
Sweet charge I give to thee,
Steal where my love lies sleeping
And bear her dreams of me;
And in her dream,
Love, let me seem
All she would have me be.
“Kind sleep! By thee we may attain
To joys long hoped and sought in vain,
By thee we all may find again
Our lost divinity.
“So, Night-wind, softly creeping,
This charge I give to thee,
Go where my love lies sleeping
And bear her dreams of me.”
Hearkening to this singing Yolande shivered, yet not with cold, and casting a cloak about her loveliness came and leaned forth into the warm, still glamour of the night, and saw where stood Jocelyn tall and shapely in the moonlight, but with hateful cock's-comb a-flaunt and ass's ears grotesquely a-dangle; wherefore she sighed and frowned upon him, saying nothing.
“Yolande?” he questioned. “O my lady, and wilt frown upon my singing?”
Answered she, leaning dimpled chin upon white fist and frowning yet:
“Nay, not—not thy—singing.”
“Is 't then this cap o' Folly—my ass's ears, Yolande? Then away with them! So shalt jester become very man as thou art very maid!” Forthwith he thrust back his cock's-comb and so stood gazing up at her wide-eyed.
But she, beholding thus his scarred face, shivered again, shrinking a little, whereupon Jocelyn bowed his head, hiding his features in his long, black-curling hair.
“Alas, my lady!” he said, “doth my ill face offend thee? This would I put off also for thy sake an it might be, but since this I may not do, close thou thine eyes a while and hear me speak. For now do I tell thee, Yolande, that I—e'en I that am poor jester—am yet a man loving thee with man's love. I that am one with face thus hatefully scarred do seek thee in thy beauty to my love—”
“Presumptuous Fool, how darest thou speak me thus?” she whispered.
“For that great love dareth greatly, Yolande.”