I. HEARD ye the word the man of God | |
| Spake to King Gradlon, blythe of mood, | |
| Where in fair Kaer-Is he abode? | |
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| “Sir King, of dalliance be not fain, | |
| From evil loves thy heart refrain, | 5 |
| For hard on pleasure followeth pain. | |
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| “Who feeds his fill on fish of sea | |
| To feed the fishes doomed is he; | |
| The swallower swallowed up shall be. | |
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| “Who drinks of the wine and the barley-brew, | 10 |
| Of water shall drink as the fishes do;— | |
| Who knows not this shall learn ’t is true.” | |
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II. Unto his guests King Gradlon said: | |
| “My merry feres, the day is sped; | |
| I will betake me to my bed. | 15 |
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| “Drink on, drink on, till morning light, | |
| In feast and dalliance waste the night; | |
| For all that will the board is dight.” | |
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| To Gradlon’s daughter, bright of blee, | |
| Her lover he whispered, tenderly: | 20 |
| “Bethink thee, sweet Dahut, the key!” | |
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| “O, I ’ll win the key from my father’s side, | |
| That bolts the sluice and bars the tide; | |
| To work thy will is thy lady’s pride.” | |
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III. Whoso that ancient king had seen, | 25 |
| Asleep in his bed of the golden sheen, | |
| Dumb-stricken all for awe had been | |
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| To see him laid in his robe of grain, | |
| His hair like snow, on his white hause-bane, 1 | |
| And round his neck his golden chain. | 30 |
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| Whoso had watched that night, I weet, | |
| Had seen a maiden stilly fleet | |
| In at the door, on naked feet; | |
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| To the old king’s side she hath stolen free, | |
| And hath kneeled her down upon her knee, | 35 |
| And lightly hath ta’en both chain and key. | |
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IV. He sleepeth still, he sleepeth sound, | |
| When, hark, a cry from the lower ground,— | |
| “The sluice is oped, Kaer-Is is drowned! | |
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| “Awake, Sir King, the gates unspar! | 40 |
| Rise up, and ride both fast and far! | |
| The sea flows over bolt and bar!” | |
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| Now curséd forever mote she be, | |
| That all for wine and harlotry, | |
| The sluice unbarred that held the sea! | 45 |
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V. “Say, woodman, that wonn’st in the forest green, | |
| The wild horse of Gradlon hast thou seen, | |
| As he passed the valley-walls between?” | |
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| “On Gradlon’s horse I set not sight, | |
| But I heard him go by in the dark of night, | 50 |
| Trip, trep,—trip, trep,—like a fire-flaught white!” | |
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| “Say, fisher, the mermaid hast thou seen, | |
| Combing her hair by the sea-waves green,— | |
| Her hair like gold in the sunlight sheen?” | |
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| “I saw the white maiden of the sea, | 55 |
| And I heard her chant her melody, | |
| And her song was sad as the wild waves be.” | |
