Robbins Library Digital Projects > Camelot Project > The Yellow Book: An Illustrated Quarterly > A Ballad of Cornwall

A Ballad of Cornwall

                      I
Sir Tristram lay by a well,
          Making sad moan;
Fast his tears tell,
For wild the wood through,
          Stricken with shrewd
          Sorrow, he ran,
When he deemed her untrue

          La Beale Isoud!
For he loved her alone.

                      II
So as he lay,
          Wasted and wan,
          Scarce like a man,
Pricking that way
          His lady-love came,
                With her damsels around,
          And her face all a-flame
With the breezes of May;
While a brachet beside her
Still bayed the fair rider,
          Still leaped up and bayed her;
                A small scenting hound
          That Sir Tristram purveyed her.

                      III
So she rode on;
         But the brachet behind
         Hung snuffing the wind,
               Till seeking and crying
                     Faster and faster,
               Beside the well lying
                     She found her dear master!
          Then licking his ears
          And cheeks wet with tears,
                     For joy never resting
                     Kept whining and questing.

                      IV
Isoud (returned
          Seeking her hound)
Soon as she learned
          Tristram was found,
Straightway alighting,
          Fell in a swound.

                      V
Won by her lover
Thence to recover,
Who shall the greeting
Tell of their meeting?
Joy, by no tongue
E'er to be sung
Passed in that plighting!

                       VI
          Thus while they dallied,
          Forth the wood sallied
An horrible libbard, and bare
The brachet away to his lair!