Red as the heart of blooming rose
All steeped in dew,
So were the maiden’s tearful eyes,
Her face all of a blushing hue;
The bashful maid could not conceal
The love that for the youthful squire
She in her inmost heart did feel.
Then from true heart outspake the Queen,
With pitying love:
“It grieves me Schoisian’s child to see
In pain that once my heart did move,
When from the Angevin ’twas mine
To part; now wounds the thorn anew
To see the suffering that is thine.
Through country or through people, say,
Art thou distressed?
Or can the help of kith and kin,
Or mine bring comfort to thy breast?
Or will our efforts naught avail?
Say, whence hath gone thy sunny glance,
And wherefore is thy cheek so pale?
Now, orphaned child, upon my grief
Some pity take;
Though crowned with crowns of kingdoms three,
I count me poor for thy dear sake
Till I can make thy grief depart,
Until my searching eyes have found
The secret of thy sorrowing heart.”
“Then will I now my anxious fears
And cares confess;
’Twere sin a silence now to keep
Against thy loving tenderness,
And ’gainst thy teaching to rebel.
Do thou my constant soother be,
Dear mother, then will all be well.
May God reward thee! never yet
Did mother kind
Show to her child a greater love
Than ’tis my lot with thee to find;
With joy my tears might overflow.
No more an orphan here am I,
Such tender love is thine to show.
Thy consolation, and advice,
And help I need,
One with another, since my heart
For my dear absent friend must bleed;
My torments all too painful prove,
My rambling thoughts upon one chord
Are knitted through out-going love.
For him, my friend, for whom my looks
For ever stray
From window to the street, or o’er
The heath when light dews pass away.
Too seldom do I see his face,
And therefore must my weeping eyes
Bear of my pining love a trace.
From window to the battlements
I sadly turn;
I look to east, I look to west,
Hoping some tidings I may learn
Of him to whom my heart is bound.
One scarce can count me young in love;
Amongst the older I am found.
If o’er the wild and heaving flood
’Tis mine to glide,
My eyes are roving here and there
O’er thirty miles outspreading wide,
Hoping some tidings I may gain
Of that dear friend, who can alone
Release me from my load of pain.