'Come, list to the lay of the olden time,'
A troubadour sang on a moonlit stream:
'The scene is laid in a foreign clime,
'A century back--and love is the theme.'
Love was the theme of the troubadour's rhyme,
Of lady and lord of the olden time

'At an iron-barred turret, a lady fair
'Knelt at the close of the vesper-chime:
'Her beads she numbered in silent prayer
'For one far away, whom to love was her crime.
'Love,' sang the troubadour, 'love was a crime,
'When fathers were stern, in the olden time.

'The warder had spurned from the castle gate
'The minstrel who wooed her in flowing rhyme--
'He came back from battle in regal estate--
'The bard was a prince of the olden time.
'Love,' sand the troubadour, 'listened to rhyme,
'And welcomed the bard of the olden time.

'The prince in disguise had the lady sought;
'To chapel they hied in their rosy prime:
'Thus worth won a jewel that wealth never bought,
'A fair lady's heart of the olden time.
'The moral,' the troubadour sang, 'of my rhyme,
'Was well understood in the olden time.'