Sir John de Vere

A Mediaeval Romance

Sir John de Vere has took a quill

And set himself to sit and write

The sweetest love that is of men

To take unto his heart's delight.

 

And he has took a damsel fair

That flitteth by, beseemingly,

And with a strand of golden hair

Begun to weave her mystery.

 

The hair it flows from quill to sheet

In whorls and ripples it doth flow,

In twists and bends it eddies forth

To settle on the sheet below.

 

The hair is sweet in light perfume,

The quill it flows from page to page,

The lady's love has settled there

For all to read and all to know.

 

The lady's hair has bound her love

With golden tresses to the line,

Her heart is caught, it knows not where,

But may not move, and may not go.

 

Her skin, that of the lightest hue

Is soft to touch and soft to dare,

Sir John de Vere reveals anew

The secrets of her every where.

 

The more the pen skims on the page

The tighter are the bonds that bind,

The lady swoons in righteous rage

At whorls and eddies in her mind.

 

In whorls and eddies it doth flow

The golden hair, a flowing stream,

The cheek is caught and now the thigh,

Imprisoned for the world to know.

 

'You've made my love a w***e', said she

'For all to come and take their sup,

My mind is open, disarrayed,

And so my thighs, my kirtle's up'.

 

Sir John heard not his lover's plea

But worked from day to night his joy

And took another golden strand

To work his quill another ploy.

 

And so his muse grew forth apace

His verse became a mighty work

And when his quill had run him dry

He went to seek his lover's face.

 

He sought and searched him far about

But never no sight of her did see,

Then mused apace before he turned

To seek the pages of his creed.

 

Among the parchment of his room

He found his love within the scrip',

And all the art and all the grace

He'd taken from his lover's lip.

 

And all the life and all the joy

Imprisoned on the churly sheet

To leave the shadow of his love

Bereft, and for the world to meet.

 

Sir John de Vere took on the thread

And pulled it from the final line,

That words that tumbled from his head

Should never not, nor now to bind.

 

And as the muse its thread was broke

A sigh came from his shadow love,

And colour caught in both the cheeks

And life came back in all the blood.

 

The arms he loosed then gripped him fast

And lips that whispered him to hear,

He will not write his love at last

Nor never again, will John de Vere.

 

David Lewis Paget