Dorigen 4 Roderick's Wife

If anyone was happy on this earth

Of ups and downs, of sun and rain,

Where fortune’s wheel lifts us up high

And at the top will throw us down again,

Then it was Roderick of Brittany.

He had, it seems, all that a man could want.

All men said that his true wife

Was the fairest lady in all the land,

From the mouth of the Seine and far beyond

Down to the south and the Gironde.

And all the women disagreed,

Though in their heart of hearts they knew she was.

They said that she was good enough and thus

No reason was there to make such a fuss.

What was she like then?

Well, she had a look that could

Make the young men sigh

And make the old men sigh too

And regret their years,

And forget their aches and pains,

And even some short dream could waken,

Of loves long gone that they could just remember,

And past chances too, some missed, some taken.

Her laugh could lighten the gloomy sky

Of the darkest morning in November,

And her smile could take the summer night

And spin it out till day’s first light.