Page:Early poems of William Morris.djvu/113



Get over all this quicker? fix your eyes

On mine, I pray you, and whate'er you see,

Still go on talking fast, unless I fall,

Or bid you stop.

And, looking in your eyes, fair lady, say

I am unhappy that your knight is dead.

Take heart, and listen ! let me tell you all.

We were five thousand goodly men-at-arms,

And scant five hundred had he in that hold;

His rotten sand-stone walls were wet with rain,

And fell in lumps wherever a stone hit;

Yet for three days about the barrier there

The deadly glaives were gather'd, laid across,

And push'd and pull'd; the fourth our engines came;

But still amid the crash of falling walls,

And roar of lombards, rattle of hard bolts,

The steady bow-strings flash'd, and still stream'd out

St. George's banner, and the seven swords,

And still they cried, "St. George Guienne!" until

Their walls were flat as Jericho's of old,

And our rush came, and cut them from the keep.

Stop, sir, and tell me if you slew him then,

And where he died, if you can really mean

That Peter Harpdon, the good knight, is dead?

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