Ballate
BALLATA IX
In wood-way found I once a shepherdess,
More fair than stars are was she to my seeming.
Her hair was wavy somewhat, like dull gold.
Eyes? Love-worn, and her face like some pale rose.
With a small twig she kept her lambs in hold,
And bare her feet were bar the dewdrop’s gloze;
She sang as one whom mad love holdeth close,
And joy was on her for an ornament.
I greeted her in love without delaying:
“Hast thou companion in thy solitude?”
And she replied to me most sweetly, saying,
“Nay, I am quite alone in all this wood,
But when the birds ’gin singing in their coverts
My heart is fain that time to find a lover.”
As she was speaking thus of her condition
I heard the bird-song ’neath the forest shade
And thought me how ’t was but the time’s provision
To gather joy of this small shepherd maid.
Favour I asked her, but for kisses only,
And then I felt her pleasant arms upon me.
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