SIR PALAMEDES, THE SARACEN KNIGHT
To breathe fond prayers ; and (marry !) if
Man’s soul were measured by his sighs
He need not linger to attain.
Nay! while the Beast squats there, above
Him, smiling on him; as he vows
Wonderful deeds and fruitless flowers,
He grows so maudlin in his love
That even the knaves of his own house
Mock at him in their merry hours.
“God’s death!” raged Palamede, not wroth
But irritated, “laugh ye so?
Am I a jape for scullions ?”
His curse came in a flaky froth.
He seized a club, with blow on blow
Breaking the knave’s unreverent sconce!
“Thou mock the Questing Beast I chase,
The Questing Beast I love? ’Od’s wounds!”
Then sudden from the slave there brake
A cachinnation scant of grace,
As if a thirty couple hounds
Were in his belly! Knight, awake!
Ah! well he woke! His love and scorn
Grapple in death-throe at his throat.
“Lead me away” (quoth he), “ my men!
Woe, woe is me was ever born
So blind a bat, so gross a goat,
As Palamede the Saracen !”
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