As far as physical
feats went, to vault barebacked upon a horse, to hit a running
hare with a crossbow-bolt, or to climb the angle of a castle
courtyard, were feats which had come by nature to the young
Squire; but it was very different with music, which had called for
many a weary hour of irksome work. Now at last he could master
the strings, but both his ear and his voice were not of the best,
so that it was well perhaps that there was so small and so
unprejudiced an audience to the Norman-French chanson, which he
sang in a high reedy voice with great earnestness of feeling, but
with many a slip and quaver, waving his yellow head in cadence to
the music:
A sword! A sword! Ah, give me a sword!
For the world is all to win.
Though the way be hard and the door be barred,
The strong man enters in.
If Chance and Fate still hold the gate,
Give me the iron key,
And turret high my plume shall fly,
Or you may weep for me!
A horse! A horse! Ah, give me a horse!
To bear me out afar,
Where blackest need and grimmest deed
And sweetest perils are.
Hold thou my ways from glutted days
Where poisoned leisure lies,
And point the path of tears and wrath
Which mounts to high emprise!
A heart! A heart! Ah, give me a heart
To rise to circumstance!
Serene and high and bold to try
The hazard of the chance,
With strength to wait, but fixed as fate
To plan and dare and do,
The peer of all, and only thrall,
Sweet lady mine, to you!
It may have been that the sentiment went for more than the music,
or it may have been the nicety of her own ears had been dulled by
age, but old Dame Ermyntrude clapped her lean hands together and
cried out in shrill applause.
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