in the shade,
It hath never a warden till comes the returning,
When the moon shall hang high and all winds shall be laid.

Waned the day and I hied me afield, and thereafter
I sat with the mighty when daylight was done,
But with great men beside me, midst high-hearted laughter,
I deemed me of all men the gainfullest one.

To wisdom I hearkened; for there the wise father
Cast the seed of his learning abroad o'er the hall,

Till men's faces darkened, but mine gladdened rather
With the thought of the knowledge I knew over all.

Sang minstrels the story, and with the song's welling
Men looked on each other and glad were they grown,
But mine was the glory of the tale and its telling
How the loved and the lover were naught but mine own.

When he was done all kept silence till they should know whether
the lord should praise the song or blame; and he said naught
for a good while, but sat as if pondering: but at last he spake:
"Thou art young, and would that we were young also!
Thy song is sweet, and it pleaseth me, who am a man of war,
and have seen enough and to spare of rough work, and would
any day rather see a fair woman than a band of spears.
But it shall please my lady wife less: for of love, and fair women,
and their lovers she hath seen enough; but of war nothing save
its shows and pomps; wherefore she desireth to hear thereof.
Now sing of battle!"

Ralph thought awhile and began to smite the harp while he conned over a
song which he had learned one yule-tide from a chieftain who had come
to Upmeads from the far-away Northland, and had abided there till
spring was waning into summer, and meanwhile he taught Ralph this song
and many things else, and his name was Sir Karr Wood-neb. This song now
Ralph sang loud and sweet, though he were now a thrall in an alien land:

Leave we the cup!
For the moon is up,
And bright is the gleam
Of the rippling stream,
That runneth his road
To the old abode,
Where the walls are white
In the moon and the night;
The house of the neighbour that drave us away
When strife ended labour amidst of the hay,
And no road for our riding was left us but one
Where the hill's brow is hiding that earth's ways are done,
And the sound of the billows comes up at the last
Like the wind in the willows ere autumn is past.

But oft a