There we the once-sundered together were blended,
We strangers, unknown once, were hidden by naught.
I kissed and I wondered how doubt was all ended,
How friendly her excellent fairness was wrought.
Round the hall of the Garden the hot sun is burning,
But no master nor minstrel goes there in the shade,
It hath never a warden till comes the returning,
When the moon shall hang high and all winds shall be laid.
Waned the day and I hied me afield, and thereafter
I sat with the mighty when daylight was done,
But with great men beside me, midst high-hearted laughter,
I deemed me of all men the gainfullest one.
To wisdom I hearkened; for there the wise father
Cast the seed of his learning abroad o'er the hall,
Till men's faces darkened, but mine gladdened rather
With the thought of the knowledge I knew over all.
Sang minstrels the story, and with the song's welling
Men looked on each other and glad were they grown,
But mine was the glory of the tale and its telling
How the loved and the lover were naught but mine own.
When he was done all kept silence till they should know whether
the lord should praise the song or blame; and he said naught
for a good while, but sat as if pondering: but at last he spake:
"Thou art young, and would that we were young also!
Thy song is sweet, and it pleaseth me, who am a man of war,
and have seen enough and to spare of rough work, and would
any day rather see a fair woman than a band of spears.
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