Page:The Queens Court Manuscript with Other Ancient Bohemian Poems, 1852, Cambridge edition.djvu/104



in a lordly garden ground Is weeding hemp a maid, A Lark addresses her and asks, Why sad, and why afraid?

‘O how can I then joyful be, Thou pretty little lark? My lover they have ta’en from me, And shut in dungeon dark.

‘O had I, had I but a pen, A letter I would write, And thou my messenger should’st be, And with it take thy flight.

‘But I’ve no paper, I’ve no pen, A letter to essay, So greet and tell my love in song, That here I pine away.’