{
 "id": "oscar-wilde/ballade-de-marguerite",
 "title": "Ballade de Marguerite",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "(Normande)",
 "poet": "Oscar Wilde",
 "poet_slug": "oscar-wilde",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 36,
 "container": "Flowers of Gold",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1881,
  "venue": "Poems (1881)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1057"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/oscar-wilde_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1338",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lotus_Leaves",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wasted_Days_(from_a_Picture_Painted_by_Miss_V._T.)",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102953450",
   "https://archive.org/details/ravennarecitedin00wildrich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010824214",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006061074",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100217578",
   "https://archive.org/details/cu31924013571082",
   "https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=pilot18770721-01.2.24"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-19"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 46,
  "n_stanzas": 23,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I am weary of lying within the chase",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the knights are meeting in market-place.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But I would not go where the Squires ride,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would only walk by my Lady’s side.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Forester’s son may not eat off gold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Will she love me the less that my Father is seen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each Martinmas day in a doublet green?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, if she is working the arras bright",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might ravel the threads by the fire-light.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Perchance she is hunting of the deer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How could you follow o’er hill and mere?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, if she is riding with the court,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might run beside her and wind the morte.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might swing the censer and ring the bell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Come in, my son, for you look sae pale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But who are these knights in bright array?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it a pageant the rich folks play?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis the King of England from over sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But why does the curfew toll sae low?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why do the mourners walk a-row?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O ’tis Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who is lying stark, for his day is done.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is no strong man who lies on the bier.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O ’tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I knew she would die at the autumn fall.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O ’tis none of our kith and none of our kin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Elle est morte, la Marguerite.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Come in, my son, and lie on the bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let the dead folk bury their dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O mother, you know I loved her true:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O mother, hath one grave room for two?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}