Songs of Old France

Lay

François Villon

1461

Returned from the cruel prison,*
Bereft almost of life; if still
Fortune towards me bear ill will,
Be you judge of her misprison!
For to me it seems that, in reason,
She should ere now have fed her fill.

Returned.

For this is full of unreason,
So to work the backslider ill:
May the ravished soul, by God's will,
Be there, on high, in due season,

Returned.

* The prison of Meun-sur-Loire. Villon was arrested and confined there in the spring of 1461 for some unknown crime. The general amnesty granted to prisoners on the accession of Louis XI to the throne of France set him free in the following October.