There in the sweet soft shifting light Across their passage rode a knight Flushed hot from hunting as from fight, And seeing the sorrow-stricken sight Made question of them why they rode As mourners sick at heart and sad, When all alive about them bade Sweet earth for heaven’s sweet sake be glad As heaven for earth’s love glowed. “Me lists not tell you,” Balen said. The strange knight’s face grew keen and red “Now, might my hand but keep my head, Even here should one of twain lie dead Were he no better armed than I.” And Balen spake with smiling speed, Where scorn and courtesy kept heed Of either: “That should little need: Not here shall either die.” And all the cause he told him through As one that feared not though he knew All: and the strange knight spake anew, Saying: “I will part no more from you While life shall last me.” So they went Where he might arm himself to ride, And rode across wild ways and wide To where against a churchyard side A hermit’s harbour leant. And there against them riding came Fleet as the lightning’s laugh and flame The invisible evil, even the same They sought and might not curse by name As hell’s foul child on earth set free, And smote the strange knight through, and fled, And left the mourners by the dead. “Alas, again,” Sir Balen said, “This wrong he hath done to me.” And there they laid their dead to sleep Royally, lying where wild winds keep Keen watch and wail more soft and deep Than where men’s choirs bid music weep And song like incense heave and swell. And forth again they rode, and found Before them, dire in sight and sound, A castle girt about and bound With sorrow like a spell. Above it seemed the sun at noon Sad as a wintry withering moon That shudders while the waste wind’s tune Craves ever none may guess what boon, But all may know the boon for dire. And evening on its darkness fell More dark than very death’s farewell, And night about it hung like hell, Whose fume the dawn made fire. And Balen lighted down and passed Within the gateway, whence no blast Rang as the sheer portcullis, cast Suddenly down, fell, and made fast The gate behind him, whence he spied A sudden rage of men without And ravin of a murderous rout That girt the maiden hard about With death on either side. And seeing that shame and peril, fear Bade wrath and grief awake and hear What shame should say in fame’s wide ear If she, by sorrow sealed more dear Than joy might make her, so should die: And up the tower’s curled stair he sprang As one that flies death’s deadliest fang, And leapt right out amid their gang As fire from heaven on high.