| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | White as the Snow | | By Edward Sapir, trans. |
| | From “French-Canadian Folk-songs”
ON a lovely bed of roses a lovely maiden sleeping, | |
| White as the snow, beautiful as day. | |
| They are three knights that come to her their love to say. | |
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| ’Tis the youngest that alights and takes her white hand. | |
| “Princess, come with me—on the back of my steed away! | 5 |
| To Paris we shall go, in a mansion we shall stay.” | |
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| As soon as they were come, the hostess turns to her: | |
| “Oh tell me, lovely maid, give me the truth to hear— | |
| Is it willing you have come and have you shed no tear?” | |
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| And maiden to the hostess: “Innocent am I; | 10 |
| From my father’s castle away king’s folk have ravished me, | |
| They’ve carried me to horse to this beautiful hostelry.” | |
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| She’d finished with her plaint, returned the man-at-arms: | |
| “Eat and drink, my sweet, with a goodly appetite— | |
| ’Tis with a man-at-arms you’ll pass a pleasant night.” | 15 |
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| They are seated at the feast, then dead the maiden falls. | |
| “Ring—oh, ring the bells, let drum a dirge for her! | |
| My mistress she is dead, had come to her fifteenth year.” | |
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| “Where shall we bury her, this beautiful princess?”— | |
| “In the garden of her father, under an apple tree. | 20 |
| With God in paradise we pray her spirit be.” | |
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| Three days she buried lay, her father is passing by. | |
| “Open, open the grave, my father, and rescue me. | |
| I’ve played the dead three days for the sake of purity.” | | | | |
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