English poem
Give her but a least excuse to love me!
When--where-- How--can this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there, There already, to eternally reprove me? ("Hist!"--said Kate the queen; But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'Tis only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes!")
Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honour, My heart! Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! ("Nay, list!"--bade Kate the queen; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, "'Tis only a page that carols unseen, Fitting your hawks their jesses!")
* * * * *