Page:Early poems of William Morris.djvu/156

 The soft green moss. "Put cloths about your arms

Lest they should glitter; surely they will go

In a long thin line, watchful for alarms,

With all their carriages of booty, so—

"Lay down my pennon in the grass—Lord God!

What have we lying here? will they be cold,

I wonder, being so bare, above the sod,

Instead of under? This was a knight too, fold

"Lying on fold of ancient rusted mail;

No plate at all, gold rowels to the spurs,

And see the quiet gleam of turquoise pale

Along the ceinture; but the long time blurs

"Even the tinder of his coat to nought,

Except these scraps of leather; see how white

The skull is, loose within the coif! He fought

A good fight, maybe, ere he was slain quite.

"No armour on the legs too; strange in faith—

A little skeleton for a knight though—ah!

This one is bigger, truly without scathe

His enemies escaped not—ribs driven out far,—

"That must have reach'd the heart, I doubt—how now,

What say you, Aldovrand—a woman? why?"

"Under the coif a gold wreath on the brow.

Yea, see the hair not gone to powder, lie,

"Golden, no doubt, once—yea, and very small—

This for a knight; but for a dame, my lord,

These loose-hung bones seem shapely still, and tall,—

Didst ever see a woman's bones, my lord?"