A Ballad of Life

I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,     Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,     In midst whereof there was     A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.     Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,     Made my blood burn and swoon     Like a flame rained upon.     Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids blue,     And her mouths sad red heavy rose all through     Seemed sad with glad things gone.     She held a little cithern by the strings,     Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair     Of some dead lute-player     That in dead years had done delicious things.     The seven strings were named accordingly;     The first string charity,     The second tenderness,     The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,     And loving-kindness, that is pitys kin     And is most pitiless.     There were three men with her, each garmented     With gold and shod with gold upon the feet;     And with plucked ears of wheat     The first mans hair was wound upon his head.     His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad;     All his gold garment had     Pale stains of dust and rust.     A riven hood was pulled across his eyes;     The token of him being upon this wise     Made for a sign of Lust.     The next was Shame, with hollow heavy face     Coloured like green wood when flame kindles it.     He hath such feeble feet     They may not well endure in any place.     His face was full of grey old miseries,     And all his bloods increase     Was even increase of pain.     The last was Fear, that is akin to Death;     He is Shames friend, and always as Shame saith     Fear answers him again.     My soul said in me; This is marvellous,     Seeing the airs face is not so delicate     Nor the suns grace so great,     If sin and she be kin or amorous.     And seeing where maidens served her on their knees,     I bade one crave of these     To know the cause thereof.     Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead.     And Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted.     And Lust said: I am Love.     Thereat her hands began a lute-playing     And her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue;     And all the while she sung     There was no sound but long tears following     Long tears upon mens faces waxen white     With extreme sad delight.     But those three following men     Became as men raised up among the dead;     Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made red     With childs blood come again.     Then I said: Now assuredly I see     My lady is perfect, and transfigureth     All sin and sorrow and death,     Making them fair as her own eyelids be,     Or lips wherein my whole souls life abides;     Or as her sweet white sides     And bosom carved to kiss.     Now therefore, if her pity further me,     Doubtless for her sake all my days shall be     As righteous as she is.     Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms,     Even till the top rose touch thee in the throat     Where the least thornprick harms;     And girdled in thy golden singing-coat,     Come thou before my lady and say this;     Borgia, thy gold hairs colour burns in me,     Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes;     Therefore so many as these roses be,     Kiss me so many times.     Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is,     That she will stoop herself none otherwise     Than a blown vine-branch doth,     And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes,     Ballad, and on thy mouth.