She sought throughout the livelong day,
Till the shades of the evening were falling;
When out of the poor woman’s breast there burst
A shriek both wild and appalling.
For Edith the Swanneck had found at last
The corpse of the king, poor creature!
No word she utter’d, no tear she wept,
She kiss’d each pallid feature.
She kiss’d his forehead, she kiss’d his mouth,
Her arms encircled him tightly;
She kiss’d the bloody breast of the king,
Disfigured by wounds unsightly.
Upon his shoulder she likewise spied,—
And cover’d them over with kisses,—
Three little scars that her teeth had made,
The signs of their former blisses.
And in the meantime the pair of monks
Some branches of trees collected;
These form’d the bier, on which they bore
The body, with hearts dejected.
To Waltham Abbey the body they took,
To bury it rightly and duly,
And Edith the Swanneck follow’d the corpse
Of him she had loved so truly.
The litanies for the dead she sang
In childlike pious fashion,
And in the night they fearfully rang,—
The monks pray’d, full of compassion.
CHARLES I.
In the charcoal-burner’s hut in the wood
Sits the king, an object of pity;
The charcoal-burner’s child’s cradle he rocks,
And sings this monotonous ditty:
“Eiapopeia, why rustles the straw?
“The sheep in the stalls bleat loudly;
“Thou bearest the sign on thy forehead, and smil’st
“In thy sleep so wildly and proudly.