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THIRTEENTH CENTURY

What doth make my lord so pale?
Why in his sleep doth he moan and wail?
Surely a lord so fair and fine
Should sleep on roses and live on wine.

 

Down in the long dank marshy grass
The Zingaro cowered to see him pass.
The face was dark but the eyes were bright,
And the steed swayed sharply at the sight.

 

"Dog of a gipsy!" my lord he said,
And his brand gleamed bright above his head,
One moment flashed in the moon-lit air,
And the gipsy's form lay weltering there.

 

The gipsy lifted a look of hate;
"Let me speak the curse or it be too late."
He made in the air a mystic sign;
"You are rich and handsome, master mine.

 

"Backward your luck this hour I read.
Ay, cross yourself, you have bitter need,
Wild with unrest your days shall be,
And still in your sleep you shall come to me!"

 

What doth make my lord so pale?
Why in his sleep doth he moan and wail?
Surely so fair and fine a lord
May laugh to scorn a gipsy's word!

 

Nothing but crosses sore he hath
Who dares to rouse the gipsy's wrath.
But the fiends in hell they fare not worse
Than he who carries the gipsy's curse.