If a ghost should come a ghost will go: No more the lady said, Save that ever when he in wrath began To swear by the faith of a living man, She answered him, You are dead. IV I The soft night-wind went laden to death With smell of the orange in flower; The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears; The bird of the passion sang over his tears; The night named hour by hour. II Sang loud, sang low the rapturous bird Till the yellow hour was nigh, Behind the folds of a darker cloud: He chuckled, he sobbed, alow, aloud; The voice between earth and sky. III O will you, will you, women are weak; The proudest are yielding mates For a forward foot and a tongue of fire: So thought Lord Dusiote’s trusty squire, At watch by the palace-gates. IV The song of the bird was wine in his blood, And woman the odorous bloom: His master’s great adventure stirred Within him to mingle the bloom and bird, And morn ere its coming illume. V Beside him strangely a piece of the dark Had moved, and the undertones Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave, He heard, as were there a soul to save For urgency now in the groans. VI No priest was hired for the play this night: And the squire tossed head like a deer At sniff of the tainted wind; he gazed Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised, Belike on a passing bier. VII All cloaked and masked, with naked blades, That flashed of a judgement done, The lords of the Court, from the palace-door, Came issuing silently, bearers four, And flat on their shoulders one. VIII They marched the body to squire and priest, They lowered it sad to earth: The priest they gave the burial dole, Bade wrestle hourly for his soul, Who was a lord of worth. IX One said, farewell to a gallant knight! And one, but a restless ghost! ’Tis a year and a day since in this place He died, sped high by a lady of grace To join the blissful host. X Not vainly on us she charged her cause, The lady whom we revere For faith in the mask of a love untrue To the Love we honour, the Love her due, The Love we have vowed to rear. XI A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light, For the fortress defiant a mine: Right well! But not in the South, princess, Shall the lady snared of her nobleness Ever shamed or a captive pine. XII When the South had voice of a nightingale Above a Maying bower, On the heights of Love walked radiant peers; The bird of the passion sang over his tears To the breeze and the orange-flower. KING HARALD’S TRANCE I SWORD in length a reaping-hook amain Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank: ’Mid the swathes of slain, First at moonrise drank. II