O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene,
I am (thou wost) yet of thy compagnie,
A mayde, and love hunting and venerie,
And for to walke in the wodes wilde.
—Chaucer’s “Knightes Tale.”
She greets the lily on the stalk;
She shakes the soft hair from her brows;
She wavers down the garden walk
Beneath the bloomy boughs.
She is the slenderest of maids;
Her fair face strikes you like a star;
The great stone tower her pathway shades—
The prison where the Princes are.
Across the dewy pleasance falls,
All in the clear May morning light,
The shadow of those evil walls
That look so black by night.
She is so glad, so wild a thing,
Her heart sings like the lark all day;
The unhooded falcon on the wing
Is not more freely gay.
In sun and wind doth she rejoice,
And blithely drinks the airy blue,
Yet loves the solemn pines that voice
The grief she never knew.
In silence of the woods apart
Her sure swift step the Dryads know;
Full oft she speeds the bounding hart,
And draws the bending bow.
Fine gleams across her spirit dart,
And never living soul, saith she,
Could make her choose for aye to lose
Her own sweet company.
But sometimes, when the moon is bright,
So bright it almost drowns the stars,
She thinks how some have lost delight
Behind the prison bars.
It makes her sad a little space,
And casts a shadow on her look,
As branches in a woody place
Do flicker on a brook.
Last night she had a dream of men,
Dark faces strange with keen desire;
She heard the blaring trumpet then,
She saw the shields strike fire.
The pomp of plumes, the crack of spears,
Beyond her happy circle lie:
Thank Heaven! she has but eighteen years,
And loves the daisies and the sky.
And yet across her garden falls,
All in the clear May morning light,
The shadow of the prison walls
That look so black by night.