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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Lay, or Rather Roundel

By François Villon (1431–1463?)

From the ‘Greater Testament’: Translation of John Payne

DEATH, of thy rigor I complain,

That hast my lady torn from me,

And wilt not yet contented be,

Save from me too all strength be ta’en,

For languishment of heart and brain.

What harm did she in life to thee,

Death?

One heart we had betwixt us twain;

Which being dead, I too must dree

Death, or, like carven saints we see

In choir, sans life to live be fain,

Death!

[End of the Greater Testament.]