4  
WHY JESUS WEPT. 
(All unsuspicious of the weird : 
“ One day a person with a beard 
Shall write of thee, and write a lot 
Too like the late Sir Walter Scott). 
Sir Percivale de Percivale 
(Begin again !) was over all 
The pangs of death foreseen ; his eye 
Sought the high rafter vacantly. 
A week, and he would see no more ! 
His lady long had gone — O Lor’ ! 
I hear ‘ St. Agnes’ Eve ’ suggest 
To this 8’s better a far best ; 
Spenserian solemnity 
Fits this part of my minstrelsy. 
 
Now is the breath of winter in the hall. 
The logs die out — the knight would be alone ! 
The brave Sir Percival de Percivale 
Sits like an image hewen out of stone. 
Ay !  he must die.  The doctors all are gone, 
And he must follow to the dusk abode, 
The solemn place inscrutable, unknown, 
Meeting no mortal on that crowded road ; 
All swift in the one course, ions to the kathode. 
 
Sir Percival de Percivale was brave. 
There doth he sit and little cheer doth get. 
He doth not moan or laugh aloud or rave ! 
The dogs of hell are not upon him yet.