"
HE.
"If that ye went, ye should repent;
For in the forest now
I have purveyed me of a maid,
Whom I love more than you;
Another fairer than ever ye were,
I dare it well avow;
And of you both, each should be wroth
With other, as I trow:
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,
All this may nought remove my thought,
But that I will be your:
And she shall find me soft and kind,
And courteis 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."
HE.
"Mine own dear love, I see the proof
That ye be kind and true;
Of maid, and wife, in all my life,
The best that ever I knew.
Be merry and glad; be no more sad;
The case is chang-ed new;
For it were ruth that for your truth
You should have cause to rue.
Be not dismayed, whatsoever I said
To you, when I began:
I will not to the green wood go;
I am no banished man.
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