His sword was broken in his hand Where he had kissed the blade. "O soft steel that could not withstand! O my hard heart unstayed, That prayed and prayed!" Why does she call her heart hard? Because she naturally reproaches herself with his death. _Unstayed_ means uncomforted, unsupported. There is a suggestion that she prayed and prayed in vain because her heart had suffered her to send that man to battle. His bloodied banner crossed his mouth Where he had kissed her name. "O east, and west, and north, and south, Fair flew my web, for shame, To guide Death's aim!" The tints were shredded from his shield Where he had kissed her face. "Oh, of all gifts that I could yield, Death only keeps its place, My gift and grace!" The expression "_my_ web" implies that the Queen had herself woven the material of the flag. The word "web" is not now often used in modern prose in this sense--we say texture, stuff, material instead. _A shred_ especially means a small _torn_ piece. "To shred from" would therefore mean to remove in small torn pieces--or, more simply expressed, to scratch off, or rend away. Of course the rich thick painting upon the shield is referred to. Repeated blows upon the surface would remove the painting in small shreds. This is very pathetic when rightly studied. She sees that all the presents she made to him, banner, sword, shield, have been destroyed in the battle; and with bitter irony, the irony of grief, she exclaims, "The only present I made him that could not be taken back or broken was death. Death was my grace, my one kindness!" Then stepped a damsel to her side, And spoke, and needs must weep; "For his sake, lady, if he died, He prayed of thee to keep This staff and scrip." That night they hung above her bed, Till morning wet with tears. Year after year above her head Her bed his token wears, Five years, ten years. That night the passion of her grief Shook them as there they hung Each year the wind that shed the leaf Shook them and in its tongue A message flung. We must suppose the Queen's bed to have been one of the great beds used in the Middle Ages and long afterwards, with four great pillars supporting a kind of little roof or ceiling above it, and also supporting curtains, which would be drawn around the bed at night. The staff and scrip and the token would have been hung to the ceiling, or as the French call it _ciel_, of the bed; and therefore they might be shaken by a passion of grief--because a woman sobbing in the bed would shake the bed, and therefore anything hung to the awning above it. And once she woke with a clear mind That letters writ to calm Her soul lay in the scrip; to find Only a torpid balm And dust of palm.