Poor love! her face quite pale against her hair,
Praying to all the leagues of empty land
To save her from the woe she suffer'd there.

To think! they trod upon her golden hair
In the witches' sabbaths; it was a delight
For these foul things, while she, with thin feet bare,
Stood on the roof upon the winter night,

To plait her dear hair into many plaits,
And then, while God's eye look'd upon the thing,
In the very likenesses of Devil's bats,
Upon the ends of her long hair to swing.

And now she stood above the parapet,
And, spreading out her arms, let her hair flow,
Beneath that veil her smooth white forehead set
Upon the marble, more I do not know;

Because before my eyes a film of gold
Floated, as now it floats. O unknown love,
Would that I could thy yellow stair behold,
If still thou standest the lead roof above!

THE WITCH, _as she passes_.

Is there any who will dare
To climb up the yellow stair,
Glorious Rapunzel's golden hair?

THE PRINCE.

If it would please God make you sing again,
I think that I might very sweetly die,
My soul somehow reach heaven in joyous pain,
My heavy body on the beech-nuts lie.

Now I remember what a most strange year,
Most strange and awful, in the beechen wood
I have pass'd now; I still have a faint fear
It is a kind of dream not understood.

I have seen no one in this wood except
The witch and her; have heard no human tones,
But when the witches' revelry has crept
Between the very jointing of my bones.

Ah! I know now; I could not go away,
But needs must stop to hear her sing that song
She always sings at dawning of the day.
I am not happy here, for I am strong,

And every morning do I whet my sword,
Yet Rapunzel still weeps within the tower,
And still God ties me down to the green sward,
Because I cannot see the gold stair floating lower.

RAPUNZEL _sings from the tower_.

My mother taught me prayers
To say when I had need;
I have so many cares,
That I can take no heed
Of many words in them;
But I remember this:
_Christ, bring me to thy bliss.
Mary, maid withouten