Poem by Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

A Villonaud: Ballad of the Gibbet

     Or the song of the sixth companion

           SCENE: "En cest bourdel ou tenoms nostr estat."

     It being remembered that there were six of us with Master
     Villon, when that expecting presently to be hanged he writ a
     ballad whereof ye know:

                     "Frères humains qui après nous vivez."

         Drink ye a skoal for the gallows tree!
     Francois and Margot and thee and me,
     Drink we the comrades merrily
     That said us, "Till then" for the gallows tree!

         Fat Pierre with the hook gauche-main,
     Thomas Larron "Ear-the-less,"
     Tybalde and that armouress
     Who gave this poignard its premier stain
     Pinning the Guise that had been fain
     To make him a mate of the "Haulte Noblesse"
     And bade her be out with ill address
     As a fool that mocketh his drue's disdeign.

         Drink we a skoal for the gallows tree!
     Francois and Margot and thee and me,
     Drink we to Marienne Ydole,
     That hell brenn not her o'er cruelly.

         Drink we the lusty robbers twain,
     Black is the pitch o' their wedding-dress,
     Lips shrunk back for the wind's caress
     As lips shrink back when we feel the strain
     Of love that loveth in hell's disdeign
     And sense the teeth through the lips that press
     'Gainst our lips for the soul's distress
     That striveth to ours across the pain.
     Drink we skoal to the gallows tree!
     Francois and Margot and thee and me,
     For Jehan and Raoul de Vallerie
     Whose frames have the night and its winds in fee.

         Maturin, Guillaume, Jacques d'Allmain,
     Culdou lacking a coat to bless
     One lean moiety of his nakedness
     That plundered St. Hubert back o' the fane:
     Aie! the lean bare tree is widowed again
     For Michault le Borgne that would confess
     In "faith and troth" to a traitoress,
     "Which of his brothers had he slain?"

         But drink we skoal to the gallows tree!
     Francois and Margot and thee and me:

     These that we loved shall God love less
     And smite alway at their faibleness?

     Skoal!! to the Gallows! and then pray we:
     God damn his hell out speedily
     And bring their souls to his "Haulte Citee."

1. Na Audiart
2. Night Litany
3. Villonaud for This Yule
4. Masks
5. Cantico del Sole

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