“That lo! as comrades on their way, the dead escort the living.”’
—‘Nay, what are birds? let them sing on, nor heed their idle chatter.’
—‘Ah, but I fear thee, brother mine, thou savourest of censing.’
—‘Nay, at the chapel of Saint John we gathered yester even,
And the good father hallowed us with incense beyond measure.’
And yet again as they fared on, yet other birds were crying:
—‘O God, great God omnipotent, great wonders art thou working;
So gracious and so fair a maid with a dead man consorting!’
—‘Didst hear, my brother Constantine, what thing the birds are saying?
Tell me, where are those locks of thine, thy trimly-set mustachio?’