Song of the Troubadour.

“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.”