A gallant knight came riding by,
He heard its dulcet ditty ring;
And sorely, sorely, wondered he
At midnight hour that it should sing.
“And hear, thou little Nightingale,
If thou to me wilt sing a lay,
Thy feathers I’ll with gold bedeck,
Thy neck with costly pearls array.”
“With golden feathers others lure,
Such gifts for me have value slight;
I am a strange and lonely bird,
But little known to mortal wight.”
“And thou, a strange wild bird thou be,
Whom other mortals little know;
Yet hunger pinches thee, and cold,
When falls the cruel winter snow.”
“I laugh at hunger, laugh at snow,
Which falls so wide on hill and lea;
But I am vexed by secret care,
I know not either joy or glee.
“Betwixt the hills and valleys deep
Away the rapid rivers flow;
But ah! remembrance of true love
From out the mind will never go.
“O I had once a handsome love,
A famous knight of valour he;
But ah! my step-dame all o’erturn’d,
She vowed our marriage ne’er should be.
“She changed me to a Nightingale,
Bade me around the world to fly;
My Brother she changed to a wolf so gray,
Bade him into the forest hie.
“She told him, as the wood he sought,
That he should win his shape no more,
’Till he had drunk her heart’s blood out,
And that befell when years were o’er.
“It happened on a summer tide,
Amidst the wood she wandered gay,
My brother saw and watched her close,
From ’neath the bushes where he lay.