Poems and Ballads

I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers, Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass, In midst whereof there was A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours. Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon, Made my blood burn and swoon Like a flame rained upon. Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids’ blue, And her mouth’s sad red heavy rose all through Seemed sad with glad things gone.

She held a little cithern by the strings, Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair Of some dead lute-player That in dead years had done delicious things. The seven strings were named accordingly; The first string charity, The second tenderness, The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin, And loving-kindness, that is pity’s kin And is most pitiless.

There were three men with her, each garmented With gold and shod with gold upon the feet; And with plucked ears of wheat The first man’s hair was wound upon his head: His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad; All his gold garment had Pale stains of dust and rust. A riven hood was pulled across his eyes; The token of him being upon this wise Made for a sign of Lust.