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 sweepeth back, 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.

XIII.

"A boon, thou noble knight,
If ever I served thee!
Though thou art a knight and I am a page,
Now grant a boon to me;
And tell me sooth, if dark or bright,
If little loved or loved aright
Be the face of thy ladye."

XIV.

Gloomily looked the knight--
"As a son thou hast served me,
And would to none I had granted boon
Except to only thee!
For haply then I should love aright,
For then I should know if dark or bright
Were the face of my ladye.

XV.

"Yet it ill suits my knightly tongue
To grudge that granted boon,
That heavy price from heart and life
I paid in silence down;
The hand that claimed it, cleared in fine
My father's fame: I swear by mine,
That price was nobly won!

XVI.

"Earl Walter was a brave old earl,
He was my father's friend,
And while I rode the lists at court
And little guessed the end,
My noble father in his shroud
Against a slanderer lying loud,
He rose up to defend.

XVII.

"Oh, calm below the marble grey
My father's dust was strown!
Oh, meek above the marble grey
His image prayed alone!
The slanderer lied: the wretch was brave--
For, looking up the minster-nave,
He saw my father's knightly glaive
Was changed from steel to stone.

XVIII.

"Earl Walter's glaive was steel,
With a brave old hand to wear it,
And dashed the lie back in the mouth
Which lied against the godly truth
And against the knightly merit
The slanderer, 'neath the avenger's heel,
Struck up the dagger in