Bid Miles bring up la perriere,
And archers clear the vile walls there.
Bring back the notches to the ear,
Shoot well together! God to aid!
These miscreants will be well paid.
Hurrah! all goes together; Miles
Is good to win my lady's smiles
For his good shooting: Launcelot!
On knights apace! this game is hot!
Sir Guy sayeth afterwards.
I said, I go to meet her now,
And saying so, I felt a blow
From some clench'd hand across my brow,
And fell down on the sunflowers
Just as a hammering smote my ears;
After which this I felt in sooth,
My bare hands throttling without ruth
The hairy-throated castellan;
Then a grim fight with those that ran
To slay me, while I shouted: God
For the Lady Mary! deep I trod
That evening in my own red blood;
Nevertheless so stiff I stood,
That when the knights burst the old wood
Of the castle-doors, I was not dead.
I kiss the Lady Mary's head,
Her lips, and her hair golden red,
Because to-day we have been wed.
OLD LOVE
YOU must be very old, Sir Giles,
I said; he said: Yea, very old!
Whereat the mournfullest of smiles
Creased his dry skin with many a fold.
They hammer'd out my basnet point
Into a round salade, he said,
The basnet being quite out of joint,
Natheless the salade rasps my head.