Of him. At our return thick mobs of women filled the church with bobs And bows, poor puppets, trying hard to sing between their stifled sobs: _God, whose Son has fathomed sorrow, Give a mother strength to say: Mine has faced and found To-morrow. I will try to face To-day._ They turned to me. They thought me wise because I had been led by lies To blind myself to them; and now I saw things through a woman's eyes, And I went out. Not yet the end. Since innocence alone could save, Saints hit on infant infantry, and fifty thousand found the grave. My gorge rose, yet I stopped my ears. I had no hope, but I was tarred With fame too much to show my fears. My duty lay in dying hard. Oh irony! That fame increased the more its robes were patched and pieced. My whole ambition was fulfilled when power and confidence had ceased. The women kissed my feet, my horse; they clung to me like my remorse. I that set out to make the world had made myself believe by force. Nay, I that knew we were reprieved at best, had I in truth believed? My youth came back. I seemed to meet my tutor's sneer in every street. Fate cursed us with three minor kings, a leper then. Against these Things Salah-ad-Din combined the entire orient. I wished our fate had wings Instead of feet to end our dumb, keen, futile questionings, to numb The brain that binds us with the chain of kingdom go and kingdom come. One of our knights for plunder's sake undid us, roused the foe who brake In through the pass of Banias, cutting our lands in two like cake. The hour was here, but not the man. That murderer Guy de Lusignan Was sent to head our fight for life. The craven took for talisman ME and my hundred years, alas, a relic of the man I was. I toiled to still our private feuds. We marched upon Tiberias, For none would listen when I urged our leaders to await attack. We marched across the waterless inferno. Summer burnt us black. The Moslems scorched us with Greek fire. As rain upon a funeral pyre Their arrows hissed in sheets upon the smoking scrub. "Go on!" "Retire!"