I am a minstrel with a harp, For love of her my songs are sweet, And yet I dare not lift the voice That lies so far beneath her feet. III The Knight sings: O princess cease your dreams awhile And look adown your tower's gray side-- The princess gazes far away, Nor hears nor heeds the words I cried. Perchance my heart was overbold, God made her dreams too pure to break, She sees the angels in the air Fly to and fro for Mary's sake. Farewell, I mount and go my way, --But oh her hair the sun sifts thro'-- The tilts and tourneys wait my spear, I am the Knight of the Plume of Blue. When Love Was Born When Love was born I think he lay Right warm on Venus' breast, And whiles he smiled and whiles would play And whiles would take his rest. But always, folded out of sight, The wings were growing strong That were to bear him off in flight Erelong, erelong. The Shrine There is no lord within my heart, Left silent as an empty shrine Where rose and myrtle intertwine, Within a place apart. No god is there of carven stone To watch with still approving eyes My thoughts like steady incense rise; I dream and weep alone. But if I keep my altar fair, Some morning I shall lift my head From roses deftly garlanded To find the god is there. The Blind The birds are all a-building, They say the world's a-flower, And still I linger lonely Within a barren bower. I weave a web of fancies Of tears and darkness spun. How shall I sing of sunlight Who never saw the sun? I hear the pipes a-blowing, But yet I may not dance, I know that Love is passing, I cannot catch his glance. And if his voice should call me And I with groping dim Should reach his place of calling And stretch my arms to him, The wind would blow between my hands For Joy that I shall miss, The rain would fall upon my mouth That his will never kiss. Love Me Brown-thrush singing all day long In the leaves above me, Take my love this little song, "Love me, love me, love me!" When he harkens what you say, Bid him, lest he miss me, Leave his work or leave his play, And kiss me, kiss me, kiss me! The Song for Colin I sang a song at dusking time Beneath the evening star, And Terence left his latest rhyme To answer from afar. Pierrot laid down his lute to weep, And sighed, "She sings for me," But Colin slept a careless sleep Beneath an apple tree. Four Winds "Four winds blowing thro' the sky, You have seen poor maidens die, Tell me then what I shall do That my lover may be true." Said the wind from out the south, "Lay no kiss upon his mouth," And the wind from out the west, "Wound the heart within his breast," And the wind from out the east, "Send him empty from the feast," And the wind from out the north, "In the tempest thrust him forth, When thou art more cruel than he, Then will Love be kind to thee." Roundel