The admirers of
those ancient tunes will recognize the words, composed by the great
king to this air, which were taken, probably, from some folk-song to
which his cradle had been rocked among the mountains of Bearn.
"Dawn, approach,
I pray thee;
It gladdens me to see thee;
The maiden
Whom I love
Is rosy, rosy like thee;
The rose itself,
Dew-laden,
Has not her freshness;
Ermine has not
Her pureness;
Lilies have not
Her whiteness."
After naively revealing the thought of his heart in song, Etienne
contemplated the sea, saying to himself: "There is my bride; the only
love for me!" Then he sang too other lines of the canzonet,--
"She is fair
Beyond compare,"--
repeating it to express the imploring poesy which abounds in the heart
of a timid young man, brave only when alone. Dreams were in that
undulating song, sung, resung, interrupted, renewed, and hushed at
last in a final modulation, the tones of which died away like the
lingering vibrations of a bell.
At this moment a voice, which he fancied was that of a siren rising
from the sea, a woman's voice, repeated the air he had sung, but with
all the hesitations of a person to whom music is revealed for the
first time.
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