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Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems

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<hr style="width: 65%;" />[Pg 163] <h2>SHAMEFUL DEATH</h2> <div class="cpoem22"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> THERE were four of us about that bed; The mass-priest knelt at the side, I and his mother stood at the head, Over his feet lay the bride; We were quite sure that he was dead, Though his eyes were open wide. </div> <div class="stanza"> He did not die in the night, He did not die in the day, But in the morning twilight His spirit pass'd away, When neither sun nor moon was bright, And the trees were merely grey. </div> <div class="stanza"> He was not slain with the sword, Knight's axe, or the knightly spear, [Pg 164] Yet spoke he never a word After he came in here; I cut away the cord From the neck of my brother dear. </div> <div class="stanza"> He did not strike one blow, For the recreants came behind, In a place where the hornbeams grow, A path right hard to find, For the hornbeam boughs swing so, That the twilight makes it blind. </div> <div class="stanza"> They lighted a great torch then, When his arms were pinion'd fast, Sir John the knight of the Fen, Sir Guy of the Dolorous Blast, With knights threescore and ten, Hung brave Lord Hugh at last. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am threescore and ten, And my hair is all turn'd grey, But I met Sir John of the Fen Long ago on a summer day, [Pg 165] And am glad to think of the moment when I took his life away. </div> <div class="stanza"> I am threescore and ten, And my strength is mostly pass'd, But long ago I and my men, When the sky was overcast, And the smoke roll'd over the reeds of the fen, Slew Guy of the Dolorous Blast. </div> <div class="stanza"> And now, knights all of you, I pray you pray for Sir Hugh, A good knight and a true, And for Alice, his wife, pray too. </div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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