And calmed the wordy air of market-towns With faint suggestions blown from distant buds, Until the land seemed a mere dream of land, And, in this dream-field Life sat like a dove And cooed across unto her dove-mate Death, Brooding, pathetic, by a river, lone. Oh, sharper tangs pierced through this perfumed May. Strange aches sailed by with odors on the wind As when we kneel in flowers that grow on graves Of friends who died unworthy of our love. King John of France was proving such an ache In English prisons wide and fair and grand, Whose long expanses of green park and chace Did ape large liberty with such success As smiles of irony ape smiles of love. Down from the oaks of Hertford Castle park, Double with warm rose-breaths of southern Spring Came rumors, as if odors too had thorns, Sharp rumors, how the three Estates of France, Like old Three-headed Cerberus of Hell Had set upon the Duke of Normandy, Their rightful Regent, snarled in his great face, Snapped jagged teeth in inch-breadth of his throat, And blown such hot and savage breath upon him, That he had tossed great sops of royalty Unto the clamorous, three-mawed baying beast. And was not further on his way withal, And had but changed a snarl into a growl: How Arnold de Cervolles had ta'en the track That war had burned along the unhappy land, Shouting, `since France is then too poor to pay The soldiers that have bloody devoir done, And since needs must, pardie! a man must eat, Arm, gentlemen! swords slice as well as knives!' And so had tempted stout men from the ranks, And now was adding robbers' waste to war's, Stealing the leavings of remorseless battle, And making gaunter the gaunt bones of want: How this Cervolles (called "Arch-priest" by the mass) Through warm Provence had marched and menace made Against Pope Innocent at Avignon, And how the Pope nor ate nor drank nor slept, Through godly fear concerning his red wines. For if these knaves should sack his holy house And all the blessed casks be knocked o' the head, HORRENDUM! all his Holiness' drink to be Profanely guzzled down the reeking throats Of scoundrels, and inflame them on to seize The massy coffers of the Church's gold, And steal, mayhap, the carven silver shrine And all the golden crucifixes? No! -- And so the holy father Pope made stir And had sent forth a legate to Cervolles, And treated with him, and made compromise, And, last, had bidden all the Arch-priest's troop To come and banquet with him in his house, Where they did wassail high by night and day And Father Pope sat at the board and carved Midst jokes that flowed full greasily, And priest and soldier trolled good songs for mass, And all the prayers the Priests made were, `pray, drink,' And all the oaths the Soldiers swore were, `drink!' Till Mirth sat like a jaunty postillon Upon the back of Time and urged him on With piquant spur, past chapel and past cross: How Charles, King of Navarre, in long duress By mandate of King John within the walls