A Minstrel's Tale

O' how I loved her so, so long ago!
A coy lass I sought to woo with romance
Telling a troubadour's tale in tableau,
Whenever my own heart would gallivant.

Within her arms, I was an honest king
She would lend her bosom to quietness
And I would sequester her for ambling
Near the garden roses at our palace

Howbeit, she loved to make her bed there!
Where ardent fancies were never mischief
We two declared allegiance as laid bare
Casting caution outward at love's premise

She was coquettish, endearingly polite,
And swell to behold by brazier firelight!

A damsel of mystique within the court
Whose flowering never lost it's perfume,
She was not the object of knightly sport,
But servile to God within the bedroom

She wrought goodness upon my chest as wife
And candidly obeyed an honor code
That inasmuch as she did rule aright
Made pleasant all the ways of our abode

Where with passing time I never regret
Our meeting on the meadow-field in youth
She played effeuiller la marguerite
And found me there; awaiting her, with couth

She's still the ember of my memory
Golden, in her glimmering perigee