This is the lay of the cruel bard  He wrote it himself in his perilous youth  And nobody knows and no other lay tells  If fate finally gave him a lesson or no    He was a bard as anyone else yet nature had praised him a gift of its worth - an irresistible beauty  and charm of the lords, which he did not hesitate to use for his own good    Pleasure he seeked and the inevitable pain, which eventually scorched his soul beyond recognition  so that it was never completely healed unless for the moments when he was alone with the   splendour of nature and his love for the sky    Long roads did he take and many a path and lots of young girls fainted away to his enthralling   songs and caressing lips. Yet his heart could not find any place for a rest...    (Oh) The cruel bard   He was  And his lays were fair  As dew in the grass  Yet his heart was of stone...    Thousands of burnt villages he left behind  And thousands of hearts unmended  Wherever he went he brought pleasure, then woe  To daughters and mothers and envious men    He knew it all very well, the cruel bard   But, hell, he had nothing at all to disown   So he just grinned as the devil himself  And all the women around lost their pride    Although he sometimes did try to unlock his heart  Hid under strong chest of marble and snow  Yet he could not help loving anyone else  But himself and the dark of his kingly bent brows    Like a motionless sculpture of a pale heathen god  The bard used to stare in a mirror of glass   And he was ensnared in the webs of his own  Reflection of beauty so kingly yet cold...