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• “Who owns these lands?” the Pilgrim said.
• “Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.”
• “And who has thus harried them ? then” he said.
• “It was Duke Luke did this:
• God's ban be his!”

• The Pilgrim said: “Where is your house?
• I'll rest there, with your will.”
• “Ye've but to climb these swaying blackened boughs,
• And ye'll see it over the hill,
• 10 For it burns still.”

• He stood and prayed within himself.
• “Friend, bring me to your queen.”
• “Nay, ye shall seek her out yourself:
• Duke Luke may there have been,
• Knocked, and gone in.”

• “Point me at least the path,” said he.
• “Not so; lest with some wound
• Thou come back hither, it may be,
• And by thy blood i'the ground
• 20My place be found.”

• “So be it, friend. God keep thy head,
• And mine, where I will go;
• For He is here and there,” he said.
• He passed the hillside, slow,
• And stood below.

• By smouldering cornfields meadows he walked on
• The corpses, black and charred,
• Lay in their blood; and where the sun
• Had dried it afterward,
• 30The soil was hard.

• The stairs before the palace-gate
• Shone in the sun like glass;
• But in the hall there was no state.
• They saw him, what he was:
• 40And let him pass.

• “O Father, lead me to your queen;
• But take my shrift from me
• First, lest my soul depart in sin unclean.”
• “Son, in hoc nomine
• 50 Absolvo te—”

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• The Queen sat idle at by her loom.
• She heard the arras stir,
• And looked up sadly. Through the room
• The sweetness sickened her,
• Of musk and myrrh.

• Her handmaids dames silent women, standing silent two and two,
• And standing In silence combed ing the fleece.
• The Pilgrim said, “Peace be with you,
• Lady;” and bent his knees.
• 60 She answered, “Peace.”

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• Her eyes were like the skies wave within;
• Like water-reeds the poise
• Of her soft body, dainty thin;
• And like the water's noise
• So low her silver courteous voice.
• (Her body, in the poise
• Of water reeds, linned dainty thin)

• Nor yet For him, the stream had water[?] never welled
• In desert tracts malign,
• So sweet: nor had he ever felt
• So faint in the sunshine
• 70 Of Palestine.

• “Lady,” he said, “your lands lie burnt
• And waste. To meet your foe
• All fear. This I have seen and learnt.
• Say that it shall be so,
• And I will go.”

• She gazed at him. “Your cause is just,
• For I have heard the same,”
• He said: “God's strength shall be my trust.
• Fall it to good or grame,
• 80 'Tis in His Name.”

• “Sir, take my you are thank s ed. My cause is dead.
• Why should you toil to break
• A Its grave, and fall therein?” She said.
• He paused awhile, and He did not pause but spake;
• “For my vow's sake.”

• They gazed together, he and she,
• The moment minute while they spoke;
• And when he ceased, she suddenly
• Looked round upon her folk,
• As though she woke.

• She went out first. “If I am slain
  Added Text“Fight, Sir,” she said, “my prayers in pain
• ? with quick lip
  Added TextShall be your fellowship.”
• To the last damsel of her train
  Added TextHe whisper'd one among her train,
• Entreat her that she keep
  Added Text“To-night pray her to keep
• This staff & scrip.”

• And But there, save prayer, is nothing said
  Added TextAll day till night the women prayed
• Nor kneweth any any might know there
• How the fight went. The Queen has bade
• That there shall do come to her
• 180 No messenger.

• The queen is pale, her maidens ail,
• Yet And to the organ tones
• They still sing but faintly, who sang well
• The mutual orisons
• Of laudes and nones.

• O God of battles! smile & slay
• All these thy foes at length
• And all their generations—yea
• Unto the ninth & tenth
• 190O God of strength!

• It is the overtide of noon
• The ? oriel-panes are dim
• With sunlight to their eyes that soon
• The painted gilded seraphim
• All shift and swim—

• O faint weak to them the voice o' the priest
• As any trance affords;
• And when the weak voices as each anthem failed & ceased,
• It seemed that the last chords
• 200 Still sang the words.

• O father, is thine ear inclin'd
• And has thine angel pass'd?
• For lo! these watchers now are blind
• With vigil, and at lst
• Dizzy with fast.

• It is the eighth hour over noon—
• No voice to sing have they:
• Yet pauses not the constant tune
• Some sleep, and but those that may
• 210Still kneel & pray.

• “O what is the light that shines so red?
• 'Tis long since the sun set;”
• Quoth the eldest youngest to the eldest maid:
• “'Twas dusk dim but now, and yet
• The light is great.”

• Quoth the other: “'Tis our sight is dazed
• That we see lights flame i' the air.”
• But the Queen held her eyes and gazed,
• And said: “It is the glare
• 220 Of torches there.”

• “O what are the sounds that rise & spread?
• But now All day it was so still;”
• Quoth the youngest to the eldest maid;
• “Unto the furthest hill
• The air they fill.”

• Quoth the other: “Tis our sense is blurr'd
• With all the chaunts gone by.”
• But the Queen held her brows & heard,
• And said, “It is the cry
• 230 Of Victory.”

• “Oh what do ye bring out of the fight,
• Thus hid beneath these boughs?”
• “One that shall be thy guest to-night,
• And yet shall not carouse,
• Queen, in thy house.”

• “Uncover ye his face,” she said.
• “O cold changed in little space!”
• She cried: “O pale that was so red!
• O God, O God of grace!
• 260 Cover his face.”

• “O I myself would have served his cup
• Upon these knees of mine.”
• “Lady, he takes, where he doth sup,
• From other hands than thine,
• Another wine.”

• Then stept to her side that aged knight,
• “Even as he fell, full low
• I stooped, & heard his words aright:
• ‘ She knows Not she,’ he said, but O!
• 270Thou, Lord, dost know.”
• (“He said “She shall not know:
• Lord, be it so!”

• She bowed upon the ashen face.
• “And couldst thou think indeed
• I She knew not,—thus the soul whose place
• Was in those eyes could plead,
• Nor I take heed?”

• “O ye that heard his vow, held fast
• With God, hear mark also this:”
• (And where the assoilzied soul had prest
• The lips, she laid her kiss.)
• 280“My vow for his.”

• Then stept a damsel to her side,
• And while she spake did weep;
• “For his sake, Lady, if he died
• He prayed that thou shouldst keep
• This staff & scrip.”

• “O all night long above my head bed,
• She said Sweet souls, their place shall be:
• Dear as thy dreams of voice in sleep,” she said,
• “Not dearer stays with me
• 290Thy memory—”

• She kissed there often in her cries,
• And sobbed: and gazing near
• Upon the staff, she with suffering eyes
• She asked: “How sayeth here
• This character?”

• She gave it turned her to that ancient knight:
• And the dead face was proud
• And pale, as to the torches' light
• He stooped & read aloud—
• 300“Vows are to God.”

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• That night they hung above her bed,
• Till morning wet with tears.
• Year after year with sable spread above her head
• Her bed that token wears,
• 310 Five years, ten years.

• That night the passion of her grief
• Shook them as there they hung.
• Each year the wind that shed the leaf
• Shook them, and in strange tongue
• A message flung.

• Firstly[?]They shook far off with distant palace sport
• When dance & feast joust were rife;
• And the hunt shook them from the court;
• For hers, in peace or strife,
• Was a Queen's life.

• A Queen's death now: as now they shake
• With [???]
  Added TextTo chaunts in chapel dim;
• There lie where she her rest doth take
  Added TextHung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,
• (Carved lovely white & slim,)
• 330 With them, by him.

• Stand up to-day, still arm'd, with her,
• Good knight, before His brow
• Who then as now was here and there,
• Who had in mind thy vow
• Then even as now.

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• Not dusk[?] th[?] tithed with days' and years' decease
• Has [???] gift bestowed
  Added Text[?] thy [???]
• But in light stalls of golden peace,
• Here in His [?] above
• Thy jealous God.

• The lists are set in Heaven to-day,
• The bright pavilions shine;
• Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;
• The trumpets sound in sign
• 340 That she is thine.

   

• Let Friday be your highest huntingtide,
• No hound nor brach nor mastiff absent thence,—
• Through a low wood, by many miles of dens,
• All covert, where the cunning beasts abide:
• That Which now driven forth, at first you scatter wide,—
• Then close on them, & rip forth out blood & breath:
• Till all your huntsmen's horns wind to the death,
• And you count up how many beasts have died.
• Then, men & dogs together [?] brought, you'll say:
• 10 Go fairly greet from us this friend & that,
• Bid these make haste to blithest wassailings.
• Might not one vow that the whole pack had wings?
• What! hither, Beauty, Dian, Dragon, what!
• I think we held a royal hunt to-day.