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Three strange men came to the inn, One was a black man pocked and thin, One was brown with a silver knife, And one brought with him a beautiful wife. That lovely woman had hair as pale As French champagne or finest ale, That lovely woman was long and slim As a young white birch or a maple limb. Her face was like cream, her mouth was a rose What language she spoke nobody knows, But sometimes she'd scream like a cockatoo And swear wonderful oaths that nobody knew. Her great silk skirts like a silver bell Down to her little bronze slippers fell, And her low-cut gown showed a dove on its nest In blue tattooing across her breast. Nobody learned the lady's name Nor the marvelous land from which they came, But no one in all the countryside Has forgotten those men and that beautiful bride. |