He gave his steed the spur, now; rode back the way he came; The Lady Kunigunde! The lady saw him vanish, she swooned with scorn and shame.
And she remains a virgin, her pride had such a fall, The Lady Kunigunde! Changed to a wooden image she stands in sight of all.
An image, like a hedgehog, with spines for hair, is now The Lady Kunigunde of Kynast! The stranger has to kiss it, who climbs the Kynast’s brow.
We bring it him to kiss it; and if it shocks his pride, The Lady Kunigunde Kynast! He must pay down his forfeit, who will not kiss the bride, The Lady Kunigunde!
_A fair girl was sitting in the greenwood shade, List’ning to the music the spring birds made; When sweeter by far than the birds on the tree, A voice murmured near her, “Oh! come, Love, with me-- In earth or air, A thing so fair I have not seen as thee! Then come, Love, with me.”_
_“With a star for thy home, in a palace of light, Thou will add a fresh grace to the beauty of night; Or, if wealth be thy wish, thine are treasures untold, I will show thee the birthplace of jewels and gold gold-- And pearly caves Beneath the waves, All these, all these are thine, If thou will be mine.”_
_Thus whispered a Fairy to tempt the fair girl, But vain was his promise of gold and of pearl; For she said, “Tho’ thy gifts to a poor girl were dear, My father, my mother, my sisters are here: Oh! what would be Thy gifts to me Of earth, and sea, and air, If my heart were not there?”_
Merry it is in the good Greenwood, When the mavis and merle are singing, When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter’s horn is ringing.
“O Alice Brand, my native land Is lost for love of you; And we must hold by wood and wold, As outlaws wont to do.
“O Alice, ’t was all for thy locks so bright, And ’t was all for thine eyes so blue, That on the night of our luckless flight, Thy brother bold I slew.
“Now must I teach to hew the beech, The hand that held the glaive, For leaves to spread our lowly bed, And stakes to fence our cave.
“And for vest of pall, thy fingers small, That wont on harp to stray, A cloak must sheer from the slaughtered deer, To keep the cold away.”--
“O Richard! if my brother died, ’T was but a fatal chance; For darkling was the battle tried, And fortune sped the lance.