Juliet's serenade

​Where the gentle Avon flows
And a trailing rambler grows
There’s a window shining into the night
And a casement curtain flutters and blows in candle light
 
And a girl sits listening there
To a haunting old world air
As if someone played so softly below
All entranced, she hears that sweet serenade of long ago

All the while her wonder grows
As that music comes and goes
Ah, what magic makes this rare delight?
Her calling awakes the midsummer night

Who can it be playing out there
Playing for me such a sweet air?
Clavicord bells tinkling in time
Why do you chime?
​
Why do you ring, ding ding?
Tell me, minstrel, tell me the tale of love you sing!

Phantom answer came there none
But she waited on and on
Till her window grew bright with dawn’s early glow
And that bygone lover haunting the night was silent below

He no longer played that sweet serenade of long ago
The sweet serenade of long ago

Ronald Binge
​1951

​
1599
English author Shakespeare publishes Romeo and Juliet.

1524
Italian author da Porto names Romeo Montecchi in a novella Giulietta e Romeo.

1321
Italian author Dante creates Romeo of Villanova in an epic poem Paradiso.

gentle father, gentle man, gentle ghost