Belike 'twas well no foe would stand--our cavaliers were out of hand-- So I was baulked. With scarce a blow we filed across the wasted land For leagues, till Baldwin turned aside, and out of Peradventure carved His slice, Edessa. We were plied to march on Antioch half-starved. For seven months sheer courage toiled to take the town. Its ramparts foiled Our engines. Sulkiness sat down within us, and temptation coiled Tight round our bodies; every vice was lurking like a cockatrice. Ah, flesh can never quite repel the sinuous things which thoughts entice. You honey-coloured Syrian girls, whose voices turned our knights to thirls, I looked away and stopped my ears by thinking of the glossier merles At home. The arm upheld by Hur had not sufficed him to deter The dissipation of our force, alas. My lord deceived The Burr. 'Twas worse when treachery let us in. Blood, lechery, pillage, fire and din Burned an impression on my mind: the sexual ugliness of sin. Cool Bohemond called Antioch his. Ere we had killed our mutineers, We the besiegers were besieged by Kurbugha and his Amírs. Alternate famine and carouse brought plague; but doubtless God allows Expensive trials of faith that we might learn the magic formulæ. We melted, melted; kites were fed upon us, dogs ran dripping red From piles of nameless carrion, the race that Europe might have bred. Throughout our ranks desertion raged by daily sermons unassuaged. The preaching man was first in this "rope-dancing." Disillusion aged My youth by years. My master stayed. If he had erred he promptly paid. The pestilence ran after him. Despite the fervour I displayed He died of sores, this prince of tilt, though guarded by ten hallowed charms, This subject of all _trouvère_-lilt, lord in an hundred ladies' arms. Oh, how I struggled to be brave when the Pope's legate, grey and grim, Said simply this beside the grave: "Christ died for you. You died for Him." Only his jester seemed to care, and ceased awhile to swear and daff. "Who," he repeated in despair, "will pay me for his epitaph?"