II

     Sang loud, sang low the rapturous bird
     Till the yellow hour was nigh,
     Behind the folds of a darker cloud: 
     He chuckled, he sobbed, alow, aloud;
     The voice between earth and sky.

     III

     O will you, will you, women are weak;
     The proudest are yielding mates
     For a forward foot and a tongue of fire: 
     So thought Lord Dusiote’s trusty squire,
     At watch by the palace-gates.

     IV

     The song of the bird was wine in his blood,
     And woman the odorous bloom: 
     His master’s great adventure stirred
     Within him to mingle the bloom and bird,
     And morn ere its coming illume.

     V

     Beside him strangely a piece of the dark
     Had moved, and the undertones
     Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave,
     He heard, as were there a soul to save
     For urgency now in the groans.

     VI

     No priest was hired for the play this night: 
     And the squire tossed head like a deer
     At sniff of the tainted wind; he gazed
     Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised,
     Belike on a passing bier.

     VII

     All cloaked and masked, with naked blades,
     That flashed of a judgement done,
     The lords of the Court, from the palace-door,
     Came issuing silently, bearers four,
     And flat on their shoulders one.

     VIII

     They marched the body to squire and priest,
     They lowered it sad to earth: 
     The priest they gave the burial dole,
     Bade wrestle hourly for his soul,
     Who was a lord of worth.

     IX

     One said, farewell to a gallant knight! 
     And one, but a restless ghost! 
     ’Tis a year and a day since in this place
     He died, sped high by a lady of grace
     To join the blissful host.

     X

     Not vainly on us she charged her cause,
     The lady whom we revere
     For faith in the mask of a love untrue
     To the Love we honour, the Love her due,
     The Love we have vowed to rear.

     XI

     A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light,
     For the fortress defiant a mine: 
     Right well!  But not in the South, princess,
     Shall the lady snared of her nobleness
     Ever shamed or a captive pine.

     XII

     When the South had voice of a nightingale
     Above a Maying bower,
     On the heights of Love walked radiant peers;
     The bird of the passion sang over his tears
     To the breeze and the orange-flower.

     King Harald’s trance

     I

     Sword in length a reaping-hook amain
     Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank: 
     ’Mid the swathes of slain,
     First at moonrise drank.