BALLADE OF NICOLETE. BY GRAHAM R. TOMSON.
Reading edition
This ballad by a poet of our own time finds its way into the hearts of those who have read and loved the song-story of Aucassin and Nicolete. It has about it the fragrance and naïveté of that “good lay,” it contains the “force and freshness of young passion, the troubadour’s sweetness of literary manner,” as Mr. Le Gallienne says of another poem on the same subject written by Edmund Clarence Stedman.
All bathed in pearl and amber light She rose to fling the lattice wide, And leaned into the fragrant night, Where brown birds sang of summertide; (’Twas Love’s own voice that called and cried). “Ah Sweet!” she said, “I’ll seek thee yet, Though thorniest pathways should betide The fair white feet of Nicolete.”
They slept, who would have staid her flight; (Full fain were they the maid had died); She dropped adown her prison’s height On strands of linen featly tied. And so she passed the garden side With loose leaved roses sweetly set, And dainty daisies, dark beside The fair white feet of Nicolete!
Her lover lay in evil plight (So many lovers yet abide!) I would my tongue could praise aright Her name, that should be glorified. Those lovers now, whom foes divide A little weep—and soon forget. How far from these faint lovers glide The fair white feet of Nicolete.
ENVOY.
My princess, doff thy frozen pride, Nor scorn to pay Love’s golden debt, Through his dim woodland take for guide The fair white feet of Nicolete.