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The Damozels LADY ALICE, Lady Louise, | |
Between the wash of the tumbling seas | |
We are ready to sing, if so ye please: | |
So lay your long hands on the keys; | |
Sing Laudate pueri. | 5 |
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And ever the great bell overhead | |
Boomd in the wind a knell for the dead, | |
Though no one tolld it, a knell for the dead. | |
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Lady Louise Sister, let the measure swell | |
Not too loud; for you sing not well | 10 |
If you drown the faint boom of the bell; | |
He is weary, so am I. | |
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And ever the chevron overhead | |
Flappd on the banner of the dead; | |
(Was he asleep, or was he dead?) | 15 |
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Lady Alice Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen, | |
Two damozels wearing purple and green, | |
Four lone ladies dwelling here | |
From day to day and year to year: | |
And there is none to let us go; | 20 |
To break the locks of the doors below, | |
Or shovel away the heapd-up snow; | |
And when we die no man will know | |
That we are dead; but they give us leave, | |
Once every year on Christmas-eve, | 25 |
To sing in the Closet Blue one song: | |
And we should be so long, so long, | |
If we dard, in singing; for, dream on dream, | |
They float on in a happy stream; | |
Float from the gold strings, float from the keys, | 30 |
Float from the opend lips of Louise: | |
But, alas! the sea-salt oozes through | |
The chinks of the tiles of the Closet Blue; | |
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And ever the great bell overhead | |
Booms in the wind a knell for the dead, | 35 |
The wind plays on it a knell for the dead. | |
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(They sing all together:) How long ago was it, how long ago, | |
He came to this tower with hands full of snow? | |
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Kneel down, O love Louise, kneel down, he said, | 40 |
And sprinkled the dusty snow over my head. | |
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He watchd the snow melting, it ran through my hair, | |
Ran over my shoulders, white shoulders and bare. | |
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I cannot weep for thee, poor love Louise, | |
For my tears are all hidden deep under the seas; | 45 |
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In a gold and blue casket she keeps all my tears, | |
But my eyes are no longer blue, as in old years; | |
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Yea, they grow gray with time, grow small and dry, | |
I am so feeble now, would I might die. | |
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And in truth the great bell overhead | 50 |
Left off his pealing for the dead, | |
Perchance because the wind was dead. | |
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Will he come back again, or is he dead? | |
O! is he sleeping, my scarf round his head? | |
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Or did they strangle him as he lay there, | 55 |
With the long scarlet scarf I used to wear? | |
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Only I pray thee, Lord, let him come here! | |
Both his soul and his body to me are most dear. | |
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Dear Lord, that loves me, I wait to receive | |
Either body or spirit this wild Christmas-eve. | 60 |
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Through the floor shot up a lily red, | |
With a patch of earth from the land of the dead, | |
For he was strong in the land of the dead. | |
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What matter that his cheeks were pale, | |
His kind kissd lips all gray? | 65 |
O, love Louise, have you waited long? | |
O, my lord Arthur, yea. | |
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What if his hair that brushd her cheek | |
was stiff with frozen rime? | |
His eyes were grown quite blue again, | 70 |
As in the happy time. | |
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O, love Louise, this is the key | |
Of the happy golden land! | |
O, sisters, cross the bridge with me, | |
My eyes are full of sand. | 75 |
What matter that I cannot see, | |
If ye take me by the hand? | |
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And ever the great bell overhead | |
And the tumbling seas mournd for the dead; | |
For their song ceased, and they were dead. | 80 |
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