Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/294

 She held a psalter painted green and red. This Theophile laughed at the heart, and said; Now God so help me hither and St. Paul, As by the new time of their festival I have good will to take this maid to wife. And herewith fell to fancies of her life And soft half-thoughts that ended suddenly. This is man's guise to please himself, when he Shall not see one thing of his pleasant things, Nor with outwatch of many travailings Come to be eased of the least pain he hath For all his love and all his foolish wrath And all the heavy manner of his mind. Thus is he like a fisher fallen blind That casts his nets across the boat awry To strike the sea, but lo, he striketh dry And plucks them back all broken for his pain And bites his beard and casts across again And reaching wrong slips over in the sea. So hath this man a strangled neck for fee, For all his cost he chuckles in his throat. This Theophile that little hereof wote Laid wait to hear of her what she might be: Men told him she had name of Dorothy, And was a lady of a worthy house. Thereat this knight grew inly glorious That he should have a love so fair of place. She was a maiden of most quiet face,