ANDRÉ LE CHAPELAIN

And suit for alms prefer
That was thine Almoner?

Must I, as bondsman, kneel
That, in full many a cause,
Have scrolled thy just appeal?
Have I not writ thy Laws?
That none from Love shall take
Save but for Love's sweet sake;---

That none shall aught refuse
To Love of Love's fair dues;—
That none dear Love shall scoff
Or deem foul shame thereof;-
That none shall traitor be

To Love's own secrecy ;

Avert, avert it, Queen!
Debarred thy listed sports,

Let me at least be seen

An usher in thy courts, Outworn, but still indued With badge of servitude.

When I no more may go,

As one who treads on air,

To string-notes soft and slow,

By maids found sweet and fair— When I no more may

be

Of Love's blithe company ;

When I no more may sit
Within thine own pleasance,
To weave, in sentence fit,
Thy golden dalliance;
When other hands than these
Record thy soft decrees ;-

Leave me at least to sing
About thine outer wall,
To tell thy pleasuring,

Thy mirth, thy festival;
Yea, let my swan-song be
Thy grace, thy sanctity.

[Here ended Andre's words:

But One, that writeth, saith— Betwixt his stricken chords

He heard the Wheels of Death; And knew the fruits Love bare But Dead-Sea apples were.]

THE DYING OF TANNEGUY DU BOIS

THE DYING OF TANNEGUY DU BOIS

En los nidos de antaño

No hay pájaros hogaño.

-SPANISH PROVERB.

YEA, I am passed away, I think, from this;

Nor helps me herb, nor any leechcraft here, But lift me hither the sweet cross to kiss, And witness ye, I go without a fear. Yea, I am sped, and never more shall see,

As once I dreamed, the show of shield and
crest,

Gone southward to the fighting by the sea;-
There is no bird in any last year's nest!

Yea, with me now all dreams are done, I ween,
Grown faint and unremembered; voices call
High up, like misty warders dimly seen

Moving at morn on some Burgundian wall; And all things swim-as when the charger stands Quivering between the knees, and East and West

Are filled with flash of scarves and waving

hands ;

There is no bird in any last year's nest!

Is she a dream I left in Aquitaine?—

My wife Giselle,-who never spoke a word, Although I knew her mouth was drawn with pain,

Her eyelids hung with tears; and though I

heard

The strong sob shake her throat, and saw the

cord

Her necklace made about it;-she that prest To watch me trotting till I reached the ford ;There is no bird in any last year's nest!

Ah! I had hoped, God wot,-had longed that she

Should watch me from the little-lit tourelle,
Me, coming riding by the windy lea-

Me, coming back again to her, Giselle ;
Yea, I had hoped once more to hear him call,
The curly-pate, who, rushen lance in rest,
Stormed at the lilies by the orchard wall;-
There is no bird in any last year's nest !

But how, my Masters, ye are wrapt in gloom!
This Death will come, and whom he loves he

cleaves

Sheer through the steel and leather; hating whom He smites in shameful wise behind the greaves. 'Tis a fair time with Dennis and the Saints,

And weary work to age, and want for rest, When harness groweth heavy, and one faints, With no bird left in any last year's nest !

THE DYING OF TANNEGUY DU BOIS

Give ye good hap, then, all. For me, I lie Broken in Christ's sweet hand, with whom shall

rest

To keep me living, now that I must die ;-
There is no bird in any last year's nest!