Song of the Troubadour.

In Imitation of the Lays of the Olden Time.     "Come, list to the lay of the olden time,"         A troubadour sang on a moonlit stream:     "The scene is laid in a foreign clime,         "A century back--and love is the theme."     Love was the theme of the troubadour's rhyme,     Of lady and lord of the olden time     "At an iron-barred turret, a lady fair         "Knelt at the close of the vesper-chime:     "Her beads she numbered in silent prayer         "For one far away, whom to love was her crime.     "Love," sang the troubadour, "love was a crime,     "When fathers were stern, in the olden time.     "The warder had spurned from the castle gate         "The minstrel who wooed her in flowing rhyme--     "He came back from battle in regal estate--         "The bard was a prince of the olden time.     "Love," sand the troubadour, "listened to rhyme,     "And welcomed the bard of the olden time.     "The prince in disguise had the lady sought;         "To chapel they hied in their rosy prime:     "Thus worth won a jewel that wealth never bought,         "A fair lady's heart of the olden time.     "The moral," the troubadour sang, "of my rhyme,     "Was well understood in the olden time."