| |
A.D. 1465 | | ‘O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity! |
| * * * * * |
| Wither one rose, and let the other flourish! |
| If you contend, a thousand lives must wither!’ |
| King Henry VI, Part III, Act ii, Sc. 5. |
HEIGH! brother mine, art a-waking or a-sleeping? | |
| Mind’st that merry moon of roses a many summers fled? | |
| Mind’st thou the green and the dancing and the leaping? | |
| Mind’st thou the haycocks and the moon above them creeping? | |
| Mind’st thou how soft were the pillows of our heaping? | 5 |
| Mind’st thou our dole when the merry day was sped? | |
| I do mind how every night | |
| Thou would’st pull me roses white, | |
| Ancient sign of our proud line, argent rose on verdant bough! | |
| |
| Heigh! sweetheart mine, art a-waking or a-sleeping? | 10 |
| See’st again the roses that blossom’d long ago? | |
| See’st again the garden with its paths so still and shady? | |
| See’st again the dew lie as beads for night’s white lady? | |
| See’st thou aught else but the blue eyne of thy maidie? | |
| See’st thou their brimming in their pity of thy woe? | 15 |
| Sweet, I see thee offer up | |
| Roses red as wine in cup, | |
| Such befit (thou say’st it) golden head and lily brow! | |
| |
| Heigh ho! ye twain, that should wake in lieu of sleeping! | |
| Rue ye that rose-time when the roses all were reft? | 20 |
| Ruest thou, sweet heart, that the favour red thou worest? | |
| Ruest thou, my brother, that the badge of snow thou borest? | |
| Rue ye that noon when the fight flash’d thro’ the forest? | |
| Rue ye the maid’s tears so life-long lonely left? | |
| Rose of white, and rose of red, | 25 |
| That did each one claim her dead, | |
| Twining be at amity round about my window now! | |
| |
