So, dying not as a coward that dies And dares not look in death’s dim eyes Straight as the stars on seas and skies Whence moon and sun recoil and rise, He looked on life and death, and slept. And there with morning Merlin came, And on the tomb that told their fame He wrote by Balan’s Balen’s name, And gazed thereon, and wept. For all his heart within him yearned With pity like as fire that burned. The fate his fateful eye discerned Far off now dimmed it, ere he turned His face toward Camelot, to tell Arthur of all the storms that woke Round Balen, and the dolorous stroke, And how that last blind battle broke The consummated spell. “Alas,” King Arthur said, “this day I have heard the worst that woe might say: For in this world that wanes away I know not two such knights as they.” This is the tale that memory writes Of men whose names like stars shall stand, Balen and Balan, sure of hand, Two brethren of Northumberland, In life and death good knights.