THE THREE BUSHES
 
 SAID lady once to lover,
 "None can rely upon
 A love that lacks its proper food;
 And if your love were gone
 How could you sing those songs of love?
 I should be blamed, young man.
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 Have no lit candles in your room,'
 That lovely lady said,
 "That I at midnight by the clock
 May creep into your bed,
 For if I saw myself creep in
 I think I should drop dead.'
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 "I love a man in secret,
 Dear chambermaid,' said she.
 "I know that I must drop down dead
 If he stop loving me,
 Yet what could I but drop down dead
 If I lost my chastity?
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 "So you must lie beside him
 And let him think me there.
 And maybe we are all the same
 Where no candles are,
 And maybe we are all the same
 That stip the body bare.'
 O my dear, O my dear.
 But no dogs barked, and midnights chimed,
 And through the chime she'd say,
 "That was a lucky thought of mine,
 My lover.  looked so gay';
 But heaved a sigh if the chambermaid
 Looked half asleep all day.
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 "No, not another song,' siid he,
 "Because my lady came
 A year ago for the first time
 At midnight to my room,
 And I must lie between the sheets
 When the clock begins to chime.'
 O my dear, O my d-ear.
 
 "A laughing, crying, sacred song,
 A leching song,' they said.
 Did ever men hear such a song?
 No, but that day they did.
 Did ever man ride such a race?
 No, not until he rode.
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 But when his horse had put its hoof
 Into a rabbit-hole
 He dropped upon his head and died.
 His lady saw it all
 And dropped and died thereon, for she
 Loved him with her soul.
 O my dear, O my dear.
 The chambermaid lived long, and took
 Their graves into her charge,
 And there two bushes planted
 That when they had grown large
 Seemed sprung from but a single root
 So did their roses merge.
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 When she was old and dying,
 The priest came where she was;
 She made a full confession.
 Long looked he in her face,
 And O he was a good man
 And understood her case.
 O my dear, O my dear.
 
 He bade them take and bury her
 Beside her lady's man,
 And set a rose-tree on her grave,
 And now none living can,
 When they have plucked a rose there,
 Know where its roots began.
 O my dear, O my dear.