The Gage

'Lady Jane, O Lady Jane!      Your hound hath broken bounds again,         And chased my timorous deer, O;          If him I see,          That hour he'll dee;         My brakes shall be his bier, O.'      'Lord Arie, Lord Arie,      My hound, I trow, is fleet and free,         He's welcome to your deer, O;          Shoot, shoot you may,          He'll gang his way,         Your threats we nothing fear, O.'      He's fetched him in, he's fetched him in,      Gone all his swiftness, all his din,         White fang, and glowering eye, O:          'Here is your beast,          And now at least         My herds in peace shall lie, O.'      "In peace!" my lord, O mark me well!      For what my jolly hound befell         You shall sup twenty-fold, O!          For every tooth          Of his, i'sooth,         A stag in pawn I hold, O.      'Huntsman and horn, huntsman and horn,      Shall scare your heaths and coverts lorn,         Braying 'em shrill and clear, O;          But lone and still          Shall lift each hill,         Each valley wan and sere, O.      'Ride up you may, ride down you may,      Lonely or trooped, by night or day,         My hound shall haunt you ever:          Bird, beast, and game          Shall dread the same,         The wild fish of your river.'      Her cheek is like the angry rose,      Her eye with wrath and pity flows:         He gazes fierce and round, O, -          'Dear Lord!' he says,          'What loveliness         To waste upon a hound, O.      'I'd give my stags, my hills and dales,      My stormcocks and my nightingales         To have undone this deed, O;          For deep beneath          My heart is death         Which for her love doth bleed, O.'      Wanders he up, wanders he down,      On foot, a-horse, by night and noon:         His lands are bleak and drear, O;          Forsook his dales          Of nightingales,         Forsook his moors of deer, O.      Forsook his heart, ah me! of mirth;      There's nothing lightsome left on earth:         Only one scene is fain, O,          Where far remote          The moonbeams gloat,         And sleeps the lovely Jane, O.      Until an eve when lone he went,      Gnawing his beard in dreariment,         Lo! from a thicket hidden,          Lovely as flower          In April hour,         Steps forth a form unbidden.      'Get ye now down, Lord Arie,      I'm troubled so I'm like to dee,'         She cries, 'twixt joy and grief, O;          'The hound is dead,          When all is said,         But love is past belief, O.      'Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see,      Forlorn and still - and all for me,         All for a foolish curse, O;          Now here am I          Come out to die,         To live unlov'd is worse, O!'      In faith, this lord, in that lone dale,      Hears now a sweeter nightingale,         And lairs a tend'rer deer, O;          His sorrow goes          Like mountain snows         In waters sweet and clear, O!      Let the hound bay in Shadowland,      Tuning his ear to understand         What voice hath tamed this Arie;          Chafe, chafe he may          The stag all day,         And never thirst nor weary.      Now here he smells, now there he smells,      Winding his voice along the dells,         Till grey flows up the morn, O;          Then hies again          To Lady Jane,         No longer now forlorn, O.      Ay, as it were a bud, did break      To loveliness for Arie's sake,         So she in beauty moving          Rides at his hand          Across his land,         Beloved as well as loving.