Noble Sisters
“Now did you mark the falcon,
Sister dear, sister dear,
Flying toward my window
In the morning cool and clear?
With jingling bells about her neck,
But what beneath her wing?
It might have been a ribbon
Or it might have been a ring.” –
“I marked a falcon swooping
At the break of day;
And for your love, my sister dove,
I ‘frayed the thief away.” –
“Or did you spy a ruddy hound,
Sister fair and tall,
Went snuffling round my garden bound,
Or crouched by my bower wall?
With a silken leash about his neck;
But in his mouth may be
A chain of gold and silver links,
Or a letter writ to me.” –
“I heard a hound, highborn sister,
Stood baying at the moon:
I rose and drove him from your wall
Lest you should wake too soon.” –
“Or did you meet a pretty page
Sat swinging on the gate;
Sat whistling, whistling like a bird,
Or maybe slept too late;
With eaglets broidered on his cap
And eaglets on his glove?
If you had turned his pockets out
You had find some pledge of love.” –
“I had met him at this daybreak,
Scarce the east was red:
Lest the creaking gate should anger you
I packed him home to bed.” –
“Oh patience sister, did you see
A young man tall and strong,
Swift-footed to uphold the right
And to uproot the wrong,
Come home across the desolate sea
To woo me for his wife?
And in his heart my heart is locked
And in his life, my life.” –
“I met a nameless man, sister,
Hard by your chamber door:
I said ‘Her husband loves her much,
And yet she loves him more’.” –
“Fie, sister, fie, a wicked lie,
A lie, a wicked lie,
I have none other love but him,
Nor will have till I die.
And you have turned him from our door
And stabbed him with a lie:
I will go seek him thro’ the world
In sorrow till I die.” –
“Go seek in sorrow, sister,
And find in sorrow too;
If thus you shame our father’s name
My curse go forth with you.”
OOC This song takes its words from a poem of the same title by Christina Rosetti
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