’And for vest of pall, thy fingers small, That wont on harp to stray, A cloak must shear from the slaughter’d deer, To keep the cold away.’—
—’O Richard! if my brother died, ’Twas but a fatal chance: For darkling was the battle tried, And fortune sped the lance.
’If pall and vair no more I wear, Nor thou the crimson sheen, As warm, we’ll say, is the russet gray; As gay the forest-green.
‘And, Richard, if our lot be hard, And lost thy native land, Still Alice has her own Richàrd, And he his Alice Brand.’
II ’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good greenwood, So blithe Lady Alice is singing; On the beech’s pride, and oak’s brown side, Lord Richard’s axe is ringing.
Up spoke the moody Elfin King, Who wonn’d within the hill,— Like wind in the porch of a ruin’d church, His voice was ghostly shrill.
’Why sounds yon stroke on beech and oak, Our moonlight circle’s screen? Or who comes here to chase the deer, Beloved of our Elfin Queen? Or who may dare on wold to wear The fairies’ fatal green?
’Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie, For thou wert christen’d man: For cross or sign thou wilt not fly, For mutter’d word or ban.
‘Lay on him the curse of the wither’d heart, The curse of the sleepless eye; Till he wish and pray that his life would part, Nor yet find leave to die!’
III ’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good greenwood, Though the birds have still’d their singing; The evening blaze doth Alice raise, And Richard is fagots bringing.