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Song by Richard Cœur de Lion.

1157-1199.

Written during his imprisonment in the Tour Tenebreuse, or Black Tower.

O wretched captive of his prison speaks,

Unless with pain and bitterness of soul; Yet consolation from the Muse he seeks, Whose voice alone misfortune can control. Where now is each ally, each baron, friend, Whose face I ne'er beheld without a smile? Will none, his sovereign to redeem, expend The smallest portion of his treasures vile?

Though none may blush that near two tedious years
Without relief my bondage has endured,
Yet know, my English, Norman, Gascon peers,

Not one of you should thus remain immured;

The meanest subject of my wide domains,

Had I been free, a ransom should have found,
I mean not to reproach you with my chains,
-Yet still I wear them on a foreign ground!

Too true it is-so selfish human race!-
"Nor dead nor captive friend or kindred find;"
Since here I pine in bondage and disgrace,
For lack of gold my fetters to unbind.
Much for myself I feel, yet, ah! still more

That no compassion from my subjects flows;

What can from infamy their names restore,

If, while a prisoner, death my eyes should close?

But small is my surprise, though great my grief,
To find, in spite of all his solemn vows,
My lands are ravaged by the Gallic chief,
While none my cause has courage to espouse.

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Though lofty towers obscure the cheerful day,
Yet through the dungeon's melancholy gloom
Kind Hope in gentle whispers seems to say,
"Perpetual thraldom is not yet thy doom."

SONG OF RICHARD COEUR DE LION.

Ye dear companions of my happy days,

Of Chaill and Persarain, aloud declare
Throughout the earth in everlasting lays,

My foes against me wage inglorious war;
Oh, tell them too that ne'er among my crimes
Did breach of faith, deceit, or fraud appear;
That infamy will brand to latest times

The insults I receive while captive here.

Know, all ye men of Anjou and Touraine,

And ev'ry bachelor knight robust and brave,

That Duty now and Love alike are vain

From bonds your sovereign and your friend to save. Remote from consolation here I lie,

The wretched captive of a powerful foe,

Who all your zeal and ardour can defy,

Nor leave you aught but pity to bestow.

Translated from the Provençal.

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AISIE of light! very ground of comfort! The sunnis doughtir ye hight, as I rede, For when he westrith, farwell your disport; By your nature anone, right for pure drede Of the rude Night, that with his boistous wede Of derkenesse shadowith our hemisphere, Then closin ye, my liv'is ladie dere.

CHAUCER'S LOVE FOR THE DAISY.

Daunying the daie unto his kind resort,
And Phoebus your fathir with his stremes rede
Adorneth the morrowe, consuming the sort
Of mistie cloudes, that wouldin ovirlede
True humble hertis with ther mistie hede,
Nere comfort adaies, when your eyin clere
Disclose and sprede, my liv'is ladie dere.

Je vouldray; but the grete God disposeth
And makith casuell by His providence
Soche thing as mannis frele wit purposeth,
All for the best, if that your conscience
Not grutche it, but in humble pacience
It receve; for God saith withoutin fable,
A faithfull herte evir is acceptable.

From "A Godely Balade."

Chaucer's Love for the Daisy.

OW have I than eke this condicion,

That above all the flouris in the mede

Than love I moste these flouris white and rede,
Soche that men callin Daisies in our toun;

To them have I so grete affectioun,
As I saied erst, whan comin is the Maie,
That in my bedde there dawith me no daie
That I n'am up and walking in the mede

To sene this floure ayenst the sunnè-sprede
Whan it uprisith erly by the morowe;
That blisfull sight softinith all my sorowe;
So glad am I whan that I have presence

Of it to doin it all revèrence,

As she that is of all flouris the floure,
Fulfillid of all vertue and honoure,

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