VIII.

“So please you,” thus the youth rejoined, “Our choicest minstrel’s left behind. Ill may we hope to please your ear, Accustomed Constant’s strains to hear. The harp full deftly can he strike, And wake the lover’s lute alike; To dear Saint Valentine, no thrush Sings livelier from a spring-tide bush, No nightingale her lovelorn tune More sweetly warbles to the moon. Woe to the cause, whate’er it be, Detains from us his melody, Lavished on rocks, and billows stern, Or duller monks of Lindisfarne. Now must I venture, as I may To sing his favourite roundelay.”