Both the girls were fain to go
      Forth in sunny weather,
    For love-laden bosoms throw
      Sleep off like a feather;
    Then with measured steps and slow
      To the fields together
    Went they, seeking pastime new
      ’Mid the flowers and heather.

    Both were virgins, both, I ween,
      Were by birth princesses;
    Phyllis let her locks flow free,
      Flora trained her tresses. 
    Not like girls they went, but like
      Heavenly holinesses;
    And their faces shone like dawn
      ’Neath the day’s caresses.

    Equal beauty, equal birth,
      These fair maidens mated;
    Youthful were the years of both,
      And their minds elated;
    Yet they were a pair unpaired,
      Mates by strife unmated;
    For one loved a clerk, and one
      For a knight was fated.

    Naught there was of difference
      ’Twixt them to the seeing,
    All alike, within without,
      Seemed in them agreeing;
    With one garb, one cast of mind,
      And one mode of being,
    Only that they could not love
      Save with disagreeing.

    In the tree-tops overhead
      A spring breeze was blowing,
    And the meadow lawns around
      With green grass were growing;
    Through the grass a rivulet
      From the hill was flowing,
    Lively, with a pleasant sound
      Garrulously going.

    That the girls might suffer less
      From the noon resplendent,
    Near the stream a spreading pine
      Rose with stem ascendant;
    Crowned with boughs and leaves aloft,
      O’er the fields impendent;
    From all heat on every hand
      Airily defendent.

    On the sward the maidens sat,
      Naught that seat surpasses;
    Phyllis near the rivulet,
      Flora ’mid the grasses;
    Each into the chamber sweet
      Of her own soul passes,
    Love divides their thoughts, and wounds
      With his shafts the lasses.

    Love within the breast of each,
      Hidden, unsuspected,
    Lurks and draws forth sighs of grief
      From their hearts dejected: 
    Soon their ruddy cheeks grow pale,
      Conscious, love-affected;
    Yet their passion tells no tale,
      By soft shame protected.

    Phyllis now doth overhear
      Flora softly sighing: 
    Flora with like luck detects
      Sigh to sigh replying. 
    Thus the girls exchange the game,
      Each with other vying;
    Till the truth leaps out at length,
      Plain beyond denying.

    Long this interchange did last
      Of mute conversation;
    All of love-sighs fond and fast
      Was that dissertation. 
    Love was in their minds, and Love
      Made their lips his station;
    Phyllis then, while Flora smiled,
      Opened her oration.