Classic Poem

IN IMITATION OF THE LAYS OF THE OLDEN TIME .

" Come , list to the lay of the olden time, "
A troubadour sang on a moonlit stream:
" The scene is laid in a foreign clime,
" A century back — and love is the theme. "
Love was the theme of the troubadour's rhyme,
Of lady and lord of the olden time
" At an iron-barred turret, a lady fair
" Knelt at the close of the vesper-chime:
" Her beads she numbered in silent prayer
" For one far away, whom to love was her crime.
" Love, " sang the troubadour, " love was a crime,
" When fathers were stern, in the olden time.
" The warder had spurned from the castle gate,
" The minstrel who wooed her in flowing rhyme —
" He came back from battle in regal estate —
" The bard was a prince of the olden time.
" Love, " sang the troubadour, " listened to rhyme,
" And welcomed the bard of the olden time.
" The prince in disguise had the lady sought;
" To chapel they hied in their rosy prime:
" Thus worth won a jewel that wealth never bought,
" A fair lady's heart of the olden time
" The moral, " the troubadour sang, " of my rhyme
" Was well understood in the olden time. "