And greatly gracious; but, now hunger-tall,
With scrawny beard and faded hands and cheeks:
"Sir knight," said he, "know that the wretch who speaks
Is but an one of twenty knights here shamed
Of him who lords this castle, Damas named,
Who mews us here for slow starvation keen;
Around you fade the bones of some eighteen
Tried knights of Britain; and God grant that soon
My hunger-lengthened ghost will see the moon,
Beyond the vileness of this prisonment!"