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There were
four of us about that bed;
The mass-priest knelt at
the side,
I and his mother stood at the head,
Over
his feet lay the bride;
We were quite sure that he
was dead,
Though his eyes were open wide.
He
did not die in the night,
He did not die in the day,
But in the morning twilight
His spirit passed away,
When neither sun nor moon was bright,
And the trees
were merely grey.
He was not slain with the
sword,
Knight's axe, or the knightly spear,
Yet
spoke he never a word
After he came in here;
I cut
away the cord
From the neck of my brother dear.
He did not strike one blow,
For the recreants
came behind,
In a place where the hornbeams grow,
A path right hard to find,
For the hornbeams boughs
swing so,
That the twilight makes it blind.
They lighted a great torch then,
When his arms were
pinioned fast,
Sir John the knight of the Fen,
Sir
Guy of the Dolorous Blast,
With knights threescore
and ten,
Hung brave Lord Hugh at last.
I am
threescore and ten,
And my hair is all turned grey,
But I met Sir John of the Fen
Long ago on a summer
day,
And am glad to think of the moment when
I
took his life away.
I am threescore and ten,
And my strength is mostly passed,
But long ago I and
my men,
When the sky was overcast,
And the smoke
rolled over the reeds of the fen,
Slew Guy of the
Dolorous Blast.
And now, knights all of you,
I
pray you pray for Sir Hugh,
A good knight and a true,
And for Alice his wife pray too.
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