THE DEAD KNIGHT

The cleanly rush of the mountain air, And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees, Are the only things that wander there, The pitiful bones are laid at ease, The grass has grown in his tangled hair, And a rambling bramble binds his knees. To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell, The only requiem-bells that rang Were the hare-bell and the heather-bell. Hushed he is with the holy spell In the gentle hymn the wind sang, And he lies quiet, and sleeps well. He is bleached and blanched with the summer sun; The misty rain and the cold dew Have altered him from the kingly one (That his lady loved, and his men knew) And dwindled him to a skeleton. The vetches have twined about his bones, The straggling ivy twists and creeps In his eye-sockets; the nettle keeps Vigil about him while he sleeps. Over his body the wind moans With a dreary tune throughout the day, In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin As the gull’s cry—as the cry in the bay, The mournful word the seas say When tides are wandering out or in.