I’ll tell you a tale of a far-off land,

Cliff-girt o’er the yellow desert sand,

And crowned with peaks of snow;

Of forests of pine and a garden gay,

Of shirts of mail in a steel-capped fray,

And shafts from the six-foot bow.

Of soldier-men and of maidens fair—

Of a fairy princess with red-gold hair

In a stronghold of wizards cruel;

Of a fight or two of an old-world kind—