Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/112

74 "Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse

"The man will cleave unto his right."

"And he shall have it," the lady replied,

"Tho' I should die to-night."

"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!

Alas! my child, I sinn'd for thee."

"O mother, mother, mother," she said,

"So strange it seems to me.

"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,

My mother dear, if this be so,

And lay your hand upon my head,

And bless me, mother, ere I go."

She clad herself in a russet gown,

She was no longer Lady Clare:

She went by dale, and she went by down,

With a single rose in her hair.

The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought

Leapt up from where she lay,

Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,

And follow'd her all the way.

Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:

"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!

Why come you drest like a village maid,

That are the flower of the earth?"

"If I come drest like a village maid,

I am but as my fortunes are:

I am a beggar born," she said,

"And not the Lady Clare."