Then the brow of the King swelled crimson
  With a flush of angry scorn: 
’Well have ye spoken, my two eldest,
  And chosen as ye were born;

’But she, like a thing of peasant race,
  That is happy binding the sheaves;’
Then he saw her dead mother in her face,
  And said, ‘Thou shalt have thy leaves.’

II

He mounted and rode three days and nights
  Till he came to Vanity Fair, 30
And ’twas easy to buy the gems and the silk,
  But no Singing Leaves were there.

Then deep in the greenwood rode he,
  And asked of every tree,
’Oh, if you have ever a Singing Leaf,
  I pray you give it me!’

But the trees all kept their counsel,
  And never a word said they,
Only there sighed from the pine-tops
  A music of seas far away. 40

Only the pattering aspen
  Made a sound of growing rain,
That fell ever faster and faster,
  Then faltered to silence again.

’Oh, where shall I find a little foot-page
  That would win both hose and shoon,
And will bring to me the Singing Leaves
  If they grow under the moon?’

Then lightly turned him Walter the page,
  By the stirrup as he ran:  50
’Now pledge you me the truesome word
  Of a king and gentleman,

’That you will give me the first, first thing
  You meet at your castle-gate,
And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves,
  Or mine be a traitor’s fate.’

The King’s head dropt upon his breast
  A moment, as it might be;
’Twill be my dog, he thought, and said,
  ‘My faith I plight to thee.’ 60

Then Walter took from next his heart
  A packet small and thin,
’Now give you this to the Princess Anne,
  The Singing Leaves are therein.’

III

As the King rode in at his castle-gate,
  A maiden to meet him ran,
And ‘Welcome, father!’ she laughed and cried
  Together, the Princess Anne.

‘Lo, here the Singing Leaves,’ quoth he,
  ‘And woe, but they cost me dear!’ 70
She took the packet, and the smile
  Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart,
  And then gushed up again,
And lighted her tears as the sudden sun
  Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first Leaf, when it was opened,
  Sang:  ’I am Walter the page,
And the songs I sing ’neath thy window
  Are my only heritage.’ 80

And the second Leaf sang:  ’But in the land
  That is neither on earth nor sea,
My lute and I are lords of more
  Than thrice this kingdom’s fee.’

And the third Leaf sang, ‘Be mine!  Be mine!’
  And ever it sang, ‘Be mine!’
Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter,
  And said, ‘I am thine, thine, thine!’