Your appetite is to be light

Of love, I well espy:

For, right as ye have said to me,

245

In likewise hardily

240

It were mine ease to live in peace;
So will I, if I can:

Wherefore I to the wood will go,
Alone, a banished man.

SHE. Though in the wood I understood
Ye had a paramour,

HE.

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300

All this may nought remove my thought,
But that I will be your':

And she shall find me soft and kind 305
And courteous every hour;
Glad to fulfil all that she will
Command me, to my power:
For had ye, lo, an hundred mo,
Yet would I be that one:

For, in my mind, of all mankind
I love but you alone.

Mine own dear love, I see the proves
That ye be kind and true;

Of maid, of wife, in all my life

The best that ever I knew;

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315

Wherefore I to the wood will go,

Alone, a banished man.

SHE. If ye take heed, it is no need

HE.

Such words to say to me;

For oft ye prayed, and long assayed,

Or I loved you, pardé:

A baron's daughter be,

And though that I of ancestry

Yet have you proved how I you loved,

A squire of low degree;

And ever shall, whatso befall,

To die therefore anone;

For, in my mind, of all mankind

I love but you alone.

A baron's child to be beguiled,
It were a cursed deed!

To be feláw with an outlaw-
Almighty God forbede!

• Health.

265

I will not to the green-wood go;
I am no banished man.

SHE. These tidings be more glad to me
Than to be made a queen,

If I were sure they should endure;
But it is often seen

325