The Knights of the Joyous Venture
HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN
What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
She has no house to lay a guest in— But one chill bed for all to rest in, That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.
She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
Yet, when the signs of summer thicken, And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken, Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—