Silent sat Wallenrod, upon his elbow

Leaning, and heard with scorn the unseemly noise.

The uproar ceased; scarcely low-spoken jests

Alternate here and there the cup’s light clash.

“Let us rejoice,” he says. “How now, my brethren!

Beseems it valiant knights to thus rejoice?

One time a drunken clamour, now low murmurs?

Must we then feast like bandits or like monks?

“There were far other customs in my time,

When on the battlefield with corpses piled,