The tables and curtains, the chairs and all,
Friends of our pleasure that looked on our pain,
Are glad with the gladness of festival,
Hoping to see you at home again;
Come, let the days of their mourning pass,
The silent friends that are sad for you yet;
The little sofa, the great wine glass—
For know you had often my share, Musette.
Come, you shall wear the raiment white
You wore of old, when the world was gay,
We will wander in woods of the heart’s delight
The whole of the Sunday holiday.
Come, we will sit by the wayside inn,
Come, and your song will gain force to fly,
Dipping its wing in the clear and thin
Wine, as of old, ere it scale the sky.
Musette, who had scarcely forgotten withal
One beautiful dawn of the new year’s best,
Returned at the end of the carnival,
A flown bird, to a forsaken nest.
Ah faithless and fair! I embrace her yet,
With no heart-beat, and with never a sigh;
And Musette, no longer the old Musette,
Declares that I am no longer I.
Farewell, my dear that was once so dear,
Dead with the death of our latest love;
Our youth is laid in its sepulchre,
The calendar stands for a stone above.
’Tis only in searching the dust of the days,
The ashes of all old memories,
That we find the key of the woodland ways
That lead to the place of our paradise.
THE THREE CAPTAINS.
All beneath the white-rose tree
Walks a lady fair to see,
She is as white as the snows,
She is as fair as the day:
From her father’s garden close
Three knights have ta’en her away.
He has ta’en her by the hand,
The youngest of the three—
‘Mount and ride, my bonnie bride,
On my white horse with me.’
And ever they rode, and better rode,
Till they came to Senlis town,
The hostess she looked hard at them
As they were lighting down.
‘And are ye here by force,’ she said,
‘Or are ye here for play?
From out my father’s garden close
Three knights me stole away.
‘And fain would I win back,’ she said,
‘The weary way I come;
And fain would see my father dear,
And fain go maiden home.’