LXXXII.
"What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb, before all"—
Toll slowly.
"That a bride may keep your side while through castle-gate you ride,
Yet eschew the castle-wall?"
LXXXIII.
Ho! the breach yawns into ruin and roars up against her suing—
Toll slowly.
With the inarticulate din and the dreadful falling in—
Shrieks of doing and undoing!
LXXXIV.
Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again.
Toll slowly.
Back he reined the steed—back, back! but she trailed along his track
With a frantic clasp and strain.
LXXXV.
Evermore the foemen pour through the crash of window and door—
Toll slowly.
And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of "kill!" and "flee!"
Strike up clear amid the roar.
LXXXVI.
Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, but they closed and clung again—
Toll slowly.
While she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the rood,
In a spasm of deathly pain.