All this thing through as ye have wholly heard. This Gabalus laughed thickly in his beard. Yea, this is righteousness and maiden rule. Truly, he said, a maid is but a fool. And japed at them as one full villainous, In a lewd wise, this heathen Gabalus, And sent his men to bind her as he bade. Thus have they taken Dorothy the maid, And haled her forth as men hale pick-purses: A little need God knows they had of this, To hale her by her maiden gentle hair. Thus went she lowly, making a soft prayer, As one who stays the sweet wine in his mouth, Murmuring with eased lips, and is most loth To have done wholly with the sweet of it. Christ king, fair Christ, that knowest all men's wit And all the feeble fashion of my ways, O perfect God, that from all yesterdays Abidest whole with morrows perfected, I pray thee by thy mother's holy head Thou help me to do right, that I not slip: I have no speech nor strength upon my lip, Except thou help me who art wise and sweet. Do this too for those nails that clove thy feet, Let me die maiden after many pains. Though I be least among thy handmaidens, Doubtless I shall take death more sweetly thus. Now have they brought her to King Gabalus, Who laughed in all his throat some breathing-whiles: By God, he said, if one should leap two miles, He were not pained about the sides so much. This were a soft thing for a man to touch. Shall one so chafe that hath such little bones? And shook his throat with thick and chuckled moans For laughter that she had such holiness. What aileth thee, wilt thou do services? It were good fare to fare as Venus doth. Then said this lady with her maiden mouth, Shamefaced, and something paler in the cheek: Now, sir, albeit my wit and will to speak Give me no grace in sight of worthy men, For all my shame yet know I this again, I may not speak, nor after downlying Rise up to take delight in lute-playing, Nor sing nor sleep, nor sit and fold my hands, But my soul in some measure understands God's grace laid like a garment over me. For this fair God that out of strong sharp sea Lifted the shapely and green-coloured land, And hath the weight of heaven in his hand As one might hold a bird, and under him The heavy golden planets beam by beam Building the feasting-chambers of his house, And the large world he holdeth with his brows, And with the light of them astonisheth All place and time and face of life and death And motion of the north wind and the south, And is the sound within his angel's mouth Of singing words and words of thanksgiving, And is the colour of the latter spring And heat upon the summer and the sun, And is beginning of all things begun And gathers in him all things to their end, And with the fingers of his hand doth bend The stretched-out sides of heaven like a sail, And with his breath he maketh the red pale