Roof of hoops, and wall of logs, Like a wretched stye for hogs. There the beggar lay, already insensible or at the last gasp, on coarse thatch, on the ground, covered by an old hempen sack. The picture represented the extremest poverty of the thirteenth century; a hovel without even a feather bed or bedstead, as Aucassins' ploughman described his mother's want; and the old woman alone, dying, as the clerk appeared at the opening:-- Li clers qui fu moult bien apris Le cors Nostre Seigneur a pris A l'ostel a la povre fame S'en vient touz seus mes n'i treuve ame. Si grant clarte y a veue Que grant peeur en a eue. Ou povre lit a la vieillete Qui couvers iert d'une nateite Assises voit XII puceles Si avenans et si tres beles N'est nus tant penser i seust Qui raconter le vout peust. A coutee voist Nostre Dame Sus le chevez la povre fame Qui por la mort sue et travaille. La Mere Dieu d'une tovaille Qui blanche est plus que fleur de lis La grant sueur d'entor le vis A ses blanches mains li essuie. The clerk, well in these duties taught, The body of our Saviour brought Where she lay upon her bed Without a soul to give her aid. But such brightness there he saw As filled his mind with fear and awe. Covered with a mat of straw The woman lay; but round and near A dozen maidens sat, so fair No mortal man could dream such light, No mortal tongue describe the sight. Then he saw that next the bed, By the poor old woman's head, As she gasped and strained for breath In the agony of death, Sat Our Lady,--bending low,-- While, with napkin white as snow, She dried the death-sweat on the brow. The clerk, in terror, hesitated whether to turn and run away, but Our Lady beckoned him to the bed, while all rose and kneeled devoutly to the sacrament. Then she said to the trembling clerk:-- "Friend, be not afraid! But seat yourself, to give us aid, Beside these maidens, on the bed." And when the clerk had obeyed, she continued-- "Or tost, amis!" fait Nostre Dame, "Confessies ceste bone fame Et puis apres tout sans freeur Recevra tost son sauveeur Qui char et sanc vout en moi prendre." "Come quickly, friend!" Our Lady says, "This good old woman now confess And afterwards without distress She will at once receive her God Who deigned in me take flesh and blood." After the sacrament came a touch of realism that recalls the simple death-scenes that Walter Scott described in his grand twelfth- century manner. The old woman lingered pitiably in her agony:-- Lors dit une des demoiselles A madame sainte Marie: "Encore, dame, n'istra mie Si com moi semble du cors l'ame." "Bele fille," fait Nostre Dame, "Traveiller lais un peu le cors, Aincois que l'ame en isse hors, Si que puree soil et nete Aincois qu'en Paradis la mete. N'est or mestier qui soions plus, Ralon nous en ou ciel lassus, Quant tens en iert bien reviendrons En paradis l'ame emmerrons."