XVIII

More yet and more, and yet we mark not all: The Warning fain to bid fair women heed Its hard brief note of deadly doom and deed;[1] The verse that strewed too thick with flowers the hall Whence Nero watched his fiery festival;[2] That iron page wherein men's eyes who read See, bruised and marred between two babes that bleed, A mad red-handed husband's martyr fall;[3] The scene which crossed and streaked with mirth the strife Of Henry with his sons and witchlike wife;[4] And that sweet pageant of the kindly fiend, Who, seeing three friends in spirit and heart made one, Crowned with good hap the true-love wiles he screened In the pleached lanes of pleasant Edmonton.[5]