lived and died a knight,
Unstained of shame alive or dead."
And Balen, wrung with sorrow, said,
"That shall I do: my hand and head
I pledge to do you right."

And thence with sorrowing heart and cheer
He rode, in grief that cast out fear
Lest death in darkness yet were near,
And bore the truncheon of the spear
Wherewith the woful knight lay slain
To her with whom he rode, and she
Still bare it with her, fain to see
What righteous doom of God's might be
The darkling manslayer's bane.

And down a dim deep woodland way
They rode between the boughs asway
With flickering winds whose flash and play
Made sunlight sunnier where the day
Laughed, leapt, and fluttered like a bird
Caught in a light loose leafy net
That earth for amorous heaven had set
To hold and see the sundawn yet
And hear what morning heard.

There in the sweet soft shifting light
Across their passage rode a knight
Flushed hot from hunting as from fight,
And seeing the sorrow-stricken sight
Made question of them why they rode
As mourners sick at heart and sad,
When all alive about them bade
Sweet earth for heaven's sweet sake be glad
As heaven for earth's love glowed.

"Me lists not tell you," Balen said.
The strange knight's face grew keen and red
"Now, might my hand but keep my head,
Even here should one of twain lie dead
Were he no better armed than I."
And Balen spake with smiling speed,
Where scorn and courtesy kept heed
Of either: "That should little need:
Not here shall either die."

And all the cause he told him through
As one that feared not though he knew
All: and the strange knight spake anew,
Saying: "I will part no more from you
While life shall last me." So they went
Where he might arm himself to ride,
And rode across wild ways and wide
To where against a churchyard side
A hermit's harbour leant.

And there against them riding came
Fleet as the lightning's laugh and flame
The invisible evil, even the same
They sought and might not curse by name
As hell's foul child on earth set free,
And smote the strange knight through, and fled,
And left the mourners by the dead.
"Alas, again," Sir Balen said,
"This wrong he hath done to me."

And there they laid their dead to sleep
Royally, lying where wild winds keep
Keen watch and wail more soft and deep
Than where men's choirs bid music weep
And song like incense heave and swell.
And forth again they rode, and found
Before them, dir