Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/221

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With gentle tenderness who cast

Ye into bondage, hard and fast?

Nay! nay! The more of you they keep

Imprisoned, all the less sweet sleep

Enjoy they, terror and affright

Pursue them, and in wretched plight

Are they whose hearts are aye oppressed

With anxious care, unsoothed by rest.

Perchance a many may be stirred

To hastily condemn my word

Hereof, reciting how great kings

Have shown that riches are the springs

Of glory, when, as saith the crowd,

To strengthen and maintain their proud

And noble state they hire of men

Five hundred or five thousand: then

The commons cry: ‘Doth not then this

Show forth their glorious life, ywis?’

But God knows well that ’tis not so,

For all this valiance doth but show

They live their lives in mortal fear.

Far more of happiness doth cheer

The very beggar of the street.

Who feels no terror lest he meet

Thieves in his daily round; but kings,

In furred robes set with jewellings

And gold, atremble live, lest they

To wandering robbers fall a prey,

Who would no scruple feel to kill

Their king moreover, lest he spill

Their blood in vengeance of the crime;

For he alive, they know their time