Rosamunda
(after a piedmontese ballad)
"Ah, love me, Rosamunda,
Now love me or I die!"
—"Alas, how shall I love thee?
A wedded wife am I."
—"And wilt thou, Rosamunda,
We put the man away?"
—"Alas, how should we do it?"
—"To-day or any day!
"Within thy mother's garden
An asp is in the vine :
Go, bray it in a mortar
And put it in his wine."
****
—"Ho, wife! Ho, Rosamunda!
Where art thou, low or high?
For I am home from hunting
And sore athirst am I."
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