Choice Readings for Public and Private Entertainments and for the Use of ...

Quoth he, "Get thee from this strife—and the sweet saints bless

thy life!

In this hour I stand in need of my noble red-roan steed -
But no more of my noble wife."

Quoth she, "Meekly have I done all thy bidding under sun; But by all my womanhood, which is proved so true and good, I will never do this one.

"Now by womanhood's degree and by wifehood's verity, In this hour if thou hast need of thy noble red-roan steed, Thou hast also need of me.

"By this golden ring ye see on this lifted hand pardiè,
If this hour on castle wall can be room for steed from stall,
Shall be also room for me.

"So the sweet saints with me be" (did she utter solemnly), "If a man this eventide, on this castle wall will ride,

He shall ride the same with me."

Oh, he sprang up in the selle, and he laughed out bitter-well, "Wouldst thou ride among the leaves, as we used on other eves, To hear chime a vesper bell?”

She clang closer to his knee. "Ay, beneath the cypress tree!
Mock me not, for otherwhere than along the greenwood fair
Have I ridden fast with thee!

"Fast I rode with new-made vows, from my angry kinsman's house!

What! and would you men should reck that I dared more for love's sake

As a bride than as a spouse?

"What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb before all, That a bride may keep your side while through castle-gate you ride,

Yet eschew the castle-wall?"

Ho! the breach yawns into ruin, and roars up against her suing With the inarticulate din, and the dreadful falling in

Shrieks of doing and undoing!

Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again.

Back he reined the steed-back, back! but she trailed along his track

With a frantic clasp and strain!

Evermore the foemen pour through the crash of window and door;

And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of "Kill!" and "Flee!"

Strike up clear amid the roar.

Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, but they closed and clung again;

Wild she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the rood, In a spasm of deathly pain.

She clung wild and she clung mute, with her shuddering lips half-shut,

Her head fallen as half in swound, hair and knee swept on the ground,

She clung wild to stirrup and foot.

Back he reined his steed back-thrown on the slippery coping-stone, Back the iron hoofs did grind on the battlement behind,

Whence a hundred feet went down.

And his heel did press and goad on the quivering flank bestrode, "Friends and brothers, save my wife! Pardon, sweet, in change for life,

But I ride alone to God."

Straight, as if the holy name had upbreathed her like a flame,
She upsprang, she rose upright, in his selle she sate in sight;
By her love she overcame.

And her head was on his breast, where she smiled as one at rest,"Ring," she cried, "O vesper bell, in the beechwoods old chapelle! But the passing bell rings best."

They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose, in vain,

For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air, On the last verge rears amain.

Now he hangs, he rocks between, and his nostrils curdle in,And he shivers head and hoof, and the flakes of foam fall off; And his face grows fierce and thin!

And a look of human woe from his staring eyes did go,
And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony

Of the headlong death below.

And "Ring, ring! thou passing bell!" still she cried, "i' the old chapelle!"