Though one poor knight on stiffened knee revealed beneath his breath to me
His thoughts on women while the monks recited magic formulæ.
I sought for solace in renown. Men watched me swagger through the town
The youngest knight in Christendom. When women passed I tried to frown.
A year I suffered in this way before the wreck of our array
Would undertake the final march. My soul was saved by movement. May
Was with us, when my tutor closed his wintry Juvenal and posed
Mid nightingales to quote and kiss the Pervigilium Veneris.
I drove his authors from my head, and read Augustin hard instead;
But sap was mounting in my veins and western groves where finches wed.