It was in the month of April,
One day from the month of May,
When the roses and the lilies
Don their loveliest array,
And the night so calm and tranquil
As e'er heavens might display,
When Flerida the fair Infanta
Was to start upon her way.
In the garden of her father
To the trees there she did say:
" Fare ye well now, O my flowers,
That were wont to make me gay,
For to foreign lands I travel,
Since my fortune thither lay.
To my father, if he seek me,
Since so well he loved me, say
That not mine, not mine the fault was,
Love it is bears me away;
For he spake with such insistence
That I might not say him nay.
But I know not, none hath told me,
Whither sad at heart I stray."
Then spake to her Dom Duardos:
" Weep not, lady mine, I pray,
For within the realm of England
Clearer streams there are alway,
And gardens that are fairer far,
And thine, lady, are they.
Three hundred noble maidens
Shall thy behests obey.
Of silver are the palaces
That are thine, lady, this day,
Yea, of fine gold from Turkey,
Jacinths, emeralds, are they,
Adorned with inscriptions
That all my life portray:
E'en of the cruel pains they tell
Thou gav'st me on that day
When I with Primaleon
Was mortally at fray.
Not he, for him I feared not,
But thou didst me then slay."
These words now when Flerida heard
Her grief they might allay,
And to Dom Duardos' ships they went
That there at anchor stay:
Fifty they were in number
That as one their anchors weigh.
To the soft sound of the rowing
The Princess sleeping lay,
Asleep now in Dom Duardos' arms,
Since she was his this day.
Now therefore to all men be known
The moral of my lay :
Against the might of Death and Love
In vain is all assay.
