TELL me now in what hidden way is | |
| Lady Flora the lovely Roman? | |
| Where ’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais, | |
| Neither of them the fairer woman? | |
| Where is Echo, beheld of no man, | 5 |
| Only heard on river and mere,— | |
| She whose beauty was more than human? | |
| But where are the snows of yester-year? | |
| |
| Where ’s Heloise, the learned nun, | |
| For whose sake Abeillard, I ween, | 10 |
| Lost manhood and put priesthood on? | |
| (From love he won such dule and teen!) | |
| And where, I pray you, is the Queen | |
| Who willed that Buridan should steer | |
| Sewed in a sack’s mouth down the Seine? | 15 |
| But where are the snows of yester-year? | |
| |
| White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, | |
| With a voice like any mermaiden,— | |
| Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice, | |
| And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,— | 20 |
| And that good Joan whom Englishmen | |
| At Rouen doomed and burned her there,— | |
| Mother of God, where are they then? | |
| But where are the snows of yester-year? | |
| |
| Nay, never ask this week, fair lord, | 25 |
| Where they are gone, nor yet this year, | |
| Except with this for an overword,— | |
| But where are the snows of yester-year? | |
| |
