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 And river-songs of students wafted far Across Mondego's Hills of Loneliness And Meditation where Coimbra slept. Thus triumphed Frei Egidio. But high In the Collegio de Jesus the blow Was red on every cheek; the Rector rose In the community and said: "Padre Francisco, not in fifty years have we In our Coimbra known such sore defeat; Tell me, I pray, had you no thought to save Your honor and the honor of our schools— You, boast of Rome and Salamanca's halls.— You, to whom all the dialectic arts Have been as play—could you not parry, feint, Or bait Egidio until some chance Or newer turn might save your argument?" Suarez bowed and answered: "Better far That we be humbled than a great man fall To utter shame and ruin! Had I told Egidio there that in denying thus My proposition he was challenging A solemn canon, word for word, prescribed At Constance by the Universal Church— Fetch me the Book of Councils—he was lost." Scarce was the secret spoken, ere it stole In rumor through the novice-court, and thence Below to Santa Cruz,—stole, like a cloud, Black, ominous, across the starlit dome Above the black mosteiro, where the moon Revelled amid the sculptured lattices,— The marble ropes and palms memorial Of old Da Gama and his caravels,— Upon the rose-paths and the trickling pools