Then the Graia said: "My body is Nature and my head Is Man, and God has given me A seeing spirit, strong and free, Though by a single eye, as even Man has one vision at a time. I lift my pails up; mark them well. With this fire I will burn up heaven, And with this water I will quench The flames of hell's remotest trench, That men may work in righteousness. Not for the fears of an after hell, Nor for the rewards which heaven will bless The soul with when the mountains nod And the sun darkens, but for love Of Man and Life, and love of God. Now look!" She dashed the pail of fire Against the vault of heaven. It fell As would a canopy of blue Burned by a soldier's careless torch. She dashed the water into hell, And a great steam rose up with the smell Of gaseous coals, which seemed to scorch All things which on the good earth grew. "Now," said the Graia, "loiterer, Awake from slumber, rise and speed To fight for the Holy Sepulcher-- Nothing is left but Life, indeed-- I have burned heaven! I have quenched hell." Friar Yves no longer slept; Friar Yves awoke and wept. THE EIGHTH CRUSADE June, but we kept the fire place piled with logs, And every day it rained. And every morning I heard the wind and rain among the leaves. Try as I would my spirits grew no better. What was it? Was I ill or sick in mind? I spent the whole day working with my hands, For there was brush to clear and corn to plant Between the gusts of rain; and there at night I sat about the room and hugged the fire. And the rain dripped and the wind blew, we shivered For cold and it was June. I ached all through For my hard labor, why did muscles grow not To hardness and cure body, if 'twere body, Or soul if it were soul? But there at night As I sat aching, worn, before the hour Of sleep, and restless in this interval Of nothingness, the silence out-of-doors, Timed by the dripping rain, and by the slap Of cards upon a table by a boarder Who passed the time in playing solitaire, Sometimes my ancient host would fill his pipe, And scrape away the dust of long past years To show me what had happened in his life. And as he smoked and talked his aged wife Would parallel his theme, as a brooks' branches Formed by a slender island, flow together. Or yet again she'd intercalate a touch, An episode or version. And sometimes He'd make her hush; or sometimes he'd suspend While she went on to what she wished to finish, When he'd resume. They talked together thus. He found the story and began to tell it, And she hung on his story, told it too.