Oh, sweetest known of men, now must I tell
How fate captived and put thee in her cart,
And at the wheel tolled her funereal bell:
Oh thou, that wast the nearest to my heart,
My pitied one, my brave, my note of praise,
Who on that destined day from me didst part!
This destined man fared forth upon the ways,
But met no living wight the silent day:
And but whenas the night began to raise
Her black escutcheon over vesper grey,
Calling up blots that in the soft air spread,
And swept the sunlight gradually away:
Then entered he a forest dark and dread,
Of lonely passage and sad scenery,
By banks and dales where rushes grow to head:
Through little streams that bubbled secretly,
By thickening trees, which now the way denied,
For many hours with travel sore went he,
Nor sign of man in all the weald descried;
Yet held he on, as knowing well the while
That men were hidden in the covert wide.
And last he reached a place where in close file
The trees seemed wattled up with underwood:
And, slowly pushing through the rough-paled pile,
Straightway within a cleared space he stood;
And saw a fire, whose flame the trees displayed
Standing in circuit, an enclosing wood,
With openings in their boughs of darker shade:
Sad-eyed, annose, their giant arms they raised
O'er him who dared their secret haunt invade.
But there were other eyes that on him gazed,
And arms uplifted in more dangerous threat:
For in the clearing, round the fire that blazed,
The peasants in assembly wild were met:
The carlots who first raised that meteor vain
Which Robert caused in bloody mists to set:
They whom distress and poverty constrain
Against the seigneurs and their heavy dues
To meet in conjuration, and complain:
Whence war, defeat, ruin, and foul misuse
Of victory upon them overthrown;
Whom Robert, he of Rouen, did abuse.
Tortures and deaths he dealt before unknown
Even in this age of blood and dismal deed:
Of which thing all the woe cannot be shown
To hurt the eyes of those who choose to read:
And though't was deemed quenched and in blood washed out,
The bitter cure did not at once succeed,
Nor the last vestige of the fever dout:
For still with secret arms, and hearts of fire,
The peasants met, the ways and woods about.
Whence this assembly, where with wild desire
They of their wants consult. What wonder then
That cries of tumult and ferocious ire
Broke forth amid those wild and desperate men,
Whenas the knight drew up with sudden rein
Within the precinct of their hidden den,
And sat back on his horse with musing mien?
Anon with knives uplifted two of them,
Backing each other, came on him amain,
In mind the rider or the horse to maim;
Lean varlets were they both, in ragged gear.
But he with drawn sword put away their aim,
Sparing to smite them, though they hung anear:
And cried aloud, " Oh, lamentable crew,
Consider well what thing in me ye fear;
" Think, if ye take my life, what deed ye do
I am not of the number of your sieurs,
Whose rigour wrings revenge of yours from you
" Nothing perforce hold I from you of yours
No land have I to levy tax or toll.
But true it is that he the worst endures,
" Whose hostile semblance blots the mind's control,
And gives him hostile, all he friendly be:
And so these arms belie my pitying soul. "
Hereat they paused, and stood at gaze to see:
And then the peasant leader drew anear,
And gan demand what person he might be.
But while he question made with look severe,
A woman came beside and curiously
Under the helmet of the knight gan peer:
Then lightly laughed. " 'tis Mano, " thus cried she,
" Thou, Elfeg, shalt not kill him for my sake:
Nor spy, nor traitor, nor hard lord is he,
" But that most silly man, who me did take
From Italy, and brought me thitherward
With trouble sore, that I for him still make.
" What, Mano, knowest thou not whom thou didst guard
So soberly, who ran from thee at last?
Truly a tender charge hadst thou in ward,
" Who might support nor heat nor chilly blast:
Though in these woods since then the bitter round
Of all the seasons four she hath o'erpassed. "
With that she bent her face toward the ground
A moment: then looked up with haughty head:
" Take him, and guard him well; but never wound. "
Then, looking long on her, Sir Mano said,
" Diantha, if thou foundest me whilere
Neither unkind, nor by thy wiles misled,
" Such find me now, when unto thee I swear
That now shall be performed what erst I swore,
The charge which from thy father yet I bear,
" To bring thee back, and to thy place restore
And thou, the more that thou hast evil done,
Wash out the same by reparation more "
When this she heard, much laughed that wicked one,
And circled off from him, and kept aloof:
But stedfast there he sat, and all did shun
To put his arms of knighthood to the proof,
Armed but with knives and poles, and clad in skin.
Then from his stedfast look fearing reproof
(As virtue ever hath the bet of sin)
She taketh by the hand her paramour,
Elfeg that hight, and to the knight did win;
And much she urged, that she might 'scape that hour,
And live in wood with that strong caitiff lewd
To whom she pleased to give her beauty's dower
All which Sir Mano would not: yet he viewed
The while her beauty with full wonderment:
For never yet was seen in sted so rude
So fair a creature, nor on earth yet sent.
Clad was she in grey dress, with hodden hood
Of crimson, as his dream did her present.
Full grown was she to the wide open bud
Which beauty in her summer bears to sight:
Red were her cheeks in newest womanhood:
Her eyes were like two stars of piercing light:
Which now she strove to soften in appeal
Unto the mercy of the grave-browed knight.
But he with whom she stood was one to steel
All pity in a mind that could descry
The inward treasure through the outer seal.
He was not young, compared with her, pardy:
Nor yet with Mano: but nigh thirty years:
His hair was reddish, rusty, tossed on high;
And round his eyes were scattered loathly hairs,
Both brow and lashes: which stood thick and long;
Like to the beetle, when in rage he rears
To his red eyeballs did of right belong
Down-glancing cunning and fierce villany
Rough was his shape: his joints were big and strong:
And in clay-coloured camise clad was he.
Such varlet this high maiden chose for mate,
I know not by what spell of mastery
Neither may I conjecture nor relate
What had the sequel of that business been,
If it had lain with Mano to debate
For other thing fell out. With dagger keen
The varlet ran from her whose hand he held,
And stabbed the knight's horse, where, the reins between,
His proud neck o'er his mighty muscles swelled.
Up to the haft he plunged and left the knife,
Then ran aside: no skill such blow withheld.
Upreared the destrier proud in bloody strife,
With rolling eyeballs a wild moment's space,
Then, falling on the steel, struck out his life
And Mano was cast down upon his face:
Yet even as rose the horse, flatling his stroke
Caught that false varlet in his middle race:
And with some force falling his wrist it broke.
Then Mano quickly rose: and was in doubt
Whether with sword that felon to avoke,
Ere the wild people closed himself about,
Or seize the maiden, and make thence his way
But at that beat of time a dismal rout
Began upon the part from him away;
And there he saw a throng of knights in field,
Who in mid charge did cast down all and slay:
Slew all, and mercy unto none would yield
These were the lords, who had approached unknown
The assembly of the peasants in the weald.
Them Robert sent, to whom the place was shown
By traitorous tongue, or his own industry:
And his fell mind was planted in each one.
Sworn to spare none that living there might be,
They slew the most that were upon the ground,
And all the rest they hanged upon tree:
Then beat with dogs the woods that were around,
So that there thence escaped scarce two or three.
Which when he saw begun, Mano best found
To snatch Diantha up, and thence to flee.
But little space had he accomplished,
As through the wood his burdened way made he;
When of a knight he was encountered,
Who lay in wait for those who fled thereby
Then battle rose, and heavy strokes were sped:
Which to the opposer ended fatally:
For Mano by main force beat down the man,
And slew him there: a deadly victory:
That man alone was slain of those that won
The field against the peasants poor and bare:
He only against iron armour ran.
But when that driving fight first dinned the air,
Diantha from the knight away was slid,
And toward the open weald did back repair,
Seeking where yet her losel love were hid.
Whom as Sir Mano missed, thither he hied,
Resolved that she of him should not be rid.
And as he searched the place from side to side,
There, to make short of long, was he waylaid
By many knights at once who him espied.
So destiny devised: at him they made,
And rode him down upon the open plain:
That in his harness sorely crushed and brayed
Captived was he, and bound with heavy chain.