"For eight long years within the troop I served,

Without a furlough to relieve my pain.

The longing took me to desert the ranks,

To my fair land to turn my steps again.

" I had a luckless meeting on my way,

Three grenadiers before me made a halt.

With handcuffs hard and cold they bound my hands,

And led me to Bordeaux to a prison vault.

"Ah, is it then for love of a brown maid,

That in a cell I lie in dismal mood;

My only couch the hard planks of the floor,

Water and black bread my only drink and food."

But when the maiden heard these words of grief,

Both night and day she walked her love to see.

" Courage, my dear love," through the grate she said,

"I will find out a way to rescue thee.

"I will run out, and seek your captain kind,

Your captain kind, and your brave colonel too.

I will beseech them, and implore a pardon,

I will give them gold to free my lover true!"

"I am deeply grieved, my little shepherdess,

That for this grenadier you should moan and cry.

Before the court of war he must soon appear,

And at the drum will be condemned to die!"

When the maiden heard the cruel words he said,

Her cheeks grew white that were so rosy red.

The captain threw his arm around her waist,

And kindly bade her lift her drooping head.

"Fair shepherdess, take me for your lover,

I will love you well, and free your heart from pain."

Tears within her eyes, and kerchief to her face,

"No, no," she said, "I cannot love again."

But the soldier or the sailor after long years of service gets leave to return to his home on a furlough or a discharge. Sometimes he is welcomed by his aged parents or his faithful wife, who recognize him with joyful surprise, in spite of his rags and wounds; and sometimes he finds that his long absence has wrought fatal changes, that his parents are dead, or his wife, deceived by false news of his death, has married again. Incidents of this latter kind are familiar in folk-song, but there is none where the story is more simply and dramatically told, or where the conduct of the unfortunate husband shows such pathetic refinement of feeling, than in La Femme du Marin, which is one of the best-known and popular of the old songs of Poitou. The air is charmingly soft and melancholy, and the words display a skill in melody which the most accomplished poet might envy. A more felicitous verse can hardly be found in the whole annals of folk-song than this:—

Quand le marin revient de guerre,

Tout doux.

Quand le marin revient de guerre,

Tout doux.

Tout mal chaussÉ, tout mal vetu,

Pauvre marin du reviens tu?

Tout doux.

It is hardly necessary to apologize for the imperfection of an attempt to render such a flower of poetry into another language.