CANTO I

Now come ye down, my love,

All to the Cornish wild;

Now come ye down, my love,

As ye are Heaven’s child.

And list ye to a tale, my love,

Of romance long ago,

And list ye to a tale, my love,

Of melancholy woe.

For see ye there the holy house,

The well they call Dupath?

And see ye there the green calf-field,

All down the farmland path?

’Twas there that in the ancient day,

An ancient church was rear’d,

Though but the well now only stands,

To be with cattle peer’d.

And ere the holy kirk was rais’d,

On that same grassy field,

A knightly combat ‘twas here fought,

With shining sword and shield.

But list ye, love, how it began,

As ye hang upon my arm;

How a battlefield and a kirk,

Came but to be a farm.

For this was in the time before,

Norman-conquer’d was our land,

And still the mighty Saxon kings,

Did hold the upper hand.

Thro’ east and west held they their sway,

Though eastward more than west,

For still the race of Arthur fought,

Their great wrong to be redress’d.

And so there was appointed one,

To keep down that dwindling race,

A chieftain of the noble blood,

Him of the Fearsome Mace.

A lordly lord of Power he,

And Gotlieb was his name,

Who held both gold and land and fee,

And cared but for false Fame.

His matchless temper, none might cross,

And he had a death-mask face,

And for his battle-style was call’d,

Him of the Fearsome Mace.

And look’d he round all for a bride,

And chose a Saxon maid;

One of noble blood, and with,

A handsome dowry to be paid.

And when the chieftain to her came,

To claim her for his bride,

Rightly forth, she said him nay,

For she would not have lied.

And when the chieftain to her came,

To claim her for his wife,

Said she, “Rather will I die,

Than give to thee my life.”

Said she, “To another I am trothed,

And plighted is my love,

And my knight, my champion,

At thee he throws his glove.”

For her love was vow’d to one,