Wherefore to-day art singing in mine ear Sad songs, were made so long ago, my dear? This day I am to be a bride, you know, Why sing sad songs, were made so long ago? CHILD. O Mother, lay your costly robes aside, For you may never be another’s bride. _That_ line I learn’d not in the old sad song. MOTHER. I pray thee, pretty one, now hold thy tongue, Play with the bride-maids, and be glad, my boy, For thou shalt be a second father’s joy. CHILD. One father fondled me upon his knee, One father is enough, alone, for me. [Illustration] [Illustration: THE FIRST SIGHT OF GREEN FIELDS] XXXIII Lately an equipage I overtook, And help’d to lift it o’er a narrow brook; No horse it had, except one boy, who drew His sister out in it the fields to view. O happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going For the first time to see the green grass growing! This was the end and purport of the ride, I learn’d, as walking slowly by their side I heard their conversation. Often she-- “Brother, is this the country that I see?” The bricks were smoking and the ground was broke, There were no signs of verdure when she spoke. He, as the well-inform’d delight in chiding The ignorant, these questions still deriding, To his good judgment modestly she yields; Till, brick-kilns past, they reach’d the open fields. Then, as with rapturous wonder round she gazes On the green grass, the buttercups and daisies,-- [Illustration] “This is the country, sure enough!” she cries: “Is’t not a charming place?” The boy replies, “We’ll go no further.” “No,” says she, “no need: No finer place than this can be, indeed!” I left them gathering flowers, the happiest pair That ever London sent to breathe the fine fresh air. [Illustration] [Illustration: LINES SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF TWO FEMALES BY LEONARDO DA VINCI] XXXIV The lady Blanche, regardless of all her lovers’ fears, To the Ursuline convent hastens, and long the abbess hears. “O Blanche, my child, repent ye of the courtly life ye lead.” Blanche looked on a rosebud, and little seem’d to heed. She looked on the rosebud, she looked round and thought On all her heart had whisper’d, and all the Nun had taught. “I am worshipped by lovers, and brightly shines my fame, All Christendom resoundeth the noble Blanche’s name. Nor shall I quickly wither like the rosebud from the tree, My queen-like graces shining when my beauty’s gone from me. But when the sculptured marble is raised o’er my head, And the matchless Blanche lies lifeless among the noble dead, This saintly lady abbess hath made me justly fear It nothing will avail me that I was worshipp’d here.” [Illustration] [Illustration: LINES