Page:Early poems of William Morris.djvu/137



Nay, draw a little nearer, that your breath

May touch my lips, let my cheek feel your arm;

Now tell me, did you ever see a death,

Or ever see a man take mortal harm?

Once came two knights and fought with swords below,

And while they fought I scarce could look at all,

My head swam so, after, a moaning low

Drew my eyes down; I saw against the wall

One knight lean dead, bleeding from head and breast,

Yet seem'd it like a line of poppies red

In the golden twilight, as he took his rest,

In the dusky time he scarcely seemed dead.

But the other, on his face, six paces off,

Lay moaning, and the old familiar name

He mutter'd through the grass, seem'd like a scoff

Of some lost soul remembering his past fame.

His helm all dinted lay beside him there,

The visor-bars were twisted towards the face,

The crest, which was a lady very fair,

Wrought wonderfully, was shifted from its place.

The shower'd mail-rings on the speed-walk lay.

Perhaps my eyes were dazzled with the light

That blazed in the west, yet surely on that day

Some crimson thing had changed the grass from bright