For blindness. Yea, to Him I turned from all this heartache, nightly kissed His hand with passion. I at least would not betray the children's Friend. Haply His strength has always lain in contrast. I found strength to press Toward the mark. Not so the host: we could not kick it to its feet. Then heaven inspired us to devise a pious fraud--The Holy Lance. We hid it in Saint Peter's crypt, and dug it up. The people wept With rapture at this talisman, and sang the Psalm "Let God arise." Also our chiefs--they knew my zeal--bade me complete the heartening sign. White-plumed, white-horsed, with golden shield and halo, I contrived to appear On the horizon, waved my sword while Adhémar proclaimed Saint George. Our men responded with a shout. Through the five gates they tumbled out, An headlong torrent. In a trice the infidel was put to rout, And I joined in to hack and prod. Pure Tancred praised me with a nod. Ascetic Godfrey even spoke to me: "Lad, you belong to God." I won my spurs. They _made_ me proud. Before my sword the wizards bowed, Though me they washed. In vigil and fast I joined the perfect order, vowed To hold my manhood chaste, to gird on might with right and courtesy, To speak the truth, and so to be at variance with the common herd. Such loftiness a man can feel once in a flash: strong arms, clean hands That forged us into iron bands to unify the world with steel. But as I left the altar daft with the ambition I had quaffed-- A word can kill a century--one of my perfect brothers laughed: _I took the vow of virtue As others take to vice. I could not break my heart of you. Men call that sacrifice._ _The priests applauded nature. Poor devil, she was loth Enough. The love of God and you Has made me hate you both._ And I was sad that Christians, clad in robes so dazzling, were not glad To keep them spotless from the world, and give the Virgin all they had. Yet I was racked by continence of all we rightly rank as sense. I hungered for the Sunflower-tress that now my lips would never press.