Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/113

For, sooth, in that same field and tent,
 Thy talk was somewhat still;
And fitter thine hand for my knightly spear,
 Than thy tongue for my lady's will."

Slowly and thankfully
 The young page bowed his head:
His large eyes seemed to muse a smile,
 Until he blushed instead;
And no lady in her bower pardiè,
 Could blush more sudden red—
"Sir knight,—thy lady's bower to me,
 Is suited well," he said.

 Beati, beati, mortui!
 From the convent on the sea,—
 One mile off, or scarce as nigh,
 Swells the dirge as clear and high
 As if that, over brake and lea,
 Bodily the wind did carry
 The great altar of St. Mary,
 And the fifty tapers burning o'er it,
 And the lady Abbess dead before it,—
 And the chanting nuns whom yesterweek
 Her voice did charge and bless—
 Chanting steady, chanting meek,
 Chanting with a solemn breath
 Because that they are thinking less
 Upon the Dead than upon death!
 Beati, beati, mortui!
 Now the vision in the sound
 Wheeleth on the wind around—
 Now it sweeps aback, away—
 The uplands will not let it stay
 To dark the western sun.
 Mortui!—away at last,—
Or ere the page's blush is past!
And the knight heard all, and the page heard none.