Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/302

276 THE FIRST MORRIS out of scale. In Sir Peter Harpdons End, again, it is no longer the strange, feverish, chattering keen of the countess : — ' ' Come face to face, Christ, that I may clasp your knees and pray 1 know not what, at any rate come now From one of the many places where you are, Either in Heaven amid thick angel wings Or sitting on the altar strange with gems Or high up in the dustiness of the apse — Let us go You and I a long way off To the little damp dark Poitevin church. While you sit on the coffin in the dark Will I lie down my face on the bare stone" . . . that rings and drones most insistently in our ears. It is drowned by the sound of the arbalests, the hot hammer-and-tongs work beneath the walls, and by Clisson's noble snarl : " You filthy beast, stand back and let him go, Or by God's eyes I'll choke you ! " From all the Froissart poems a similar new manli- ness looks out. One even sees a sunny purpose at the back of the dubious films of Geffray Teste Noire — sees that its base is a composition as frank and genial as anything in Froissart, its colour-scheme the ruby and the gold of wine and noonday sun : — We rode a soft pace on that day while spies Got news about Sir Geffray ; the red wine Under the roadside bush was clear ; the flies, The dragon-flies I mind me most, did shine In brighter arms than ever I put on. It was only some lurking obstinacy in brush or brain that turned these happy colours into the hues of a poisoned dream, the ruby into the red of the frozen blood-pools and the yellow into the sick yellow of the