It is not right your love be elsewhere vowed
For bitter words I should not have allowed;
Remember, too, our bliss when first we twain
Began to love! To God my heart is bowed
That fault of mine cause not our love to wane.

The strength and valor, in your soul that dwell,
Your fame, your worth, my constancy compel;
For near or far there's none that would repel
Your love, unless 'gainst all love she rebel;
But you, dear friend, to whom such things are plain,
Which heart is truest, surely you can tell!
And then our pledges,--do not them disdain!

My worth, my rank, my beauty, too, must weigh,
And, more than all, my faithful heart should sway;
And so I send you, to your home, to-day
A song to tell you what my voice would say;
And, fair, sweet friend, I pray you to explain
Why 't is you treat me in this barbarous way,--
I cannot see,--doth pride or malice reign?

And one word more, my messenger, convey:
Oft haughtiness brings ruin in its train. 10

"Love swells like the Solway but ebbs like its tide."
Unlike the Solway tide it never flows back. The ships
do not wait. With whatever they bear they sail for an-
other anchorage, and the port they visited is empty. So
far as we know or conjecture the messenger of Lady
Biatritz carried no loving answer home to Valence.

We have one grain of satisfaction. The sins of the
fathers are visited upon the children, and, as Raimbaut
had no son, his nephew paid; for it was Aimar's fisher-
men that caught Guilhem del Bauz and made him the
laughing-stock of Provence.

The poor countess of Dia may not have lived to see
even this trifling bit of retribution, but her fidelity did
not fail of a reward. Her star is fixed in the heaven of
immortal fame, and will shine there for ever.

-106-