Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. "See that there be no traitors in your camp: We seem a nest of traitors-none to trust Of one unworthy mother; which she left: I took it for an hour in mine own bed This morning there the tender orphan hands : Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence The wrath I nursed against the world: farewell." I ceased; he said, "Stubborn, but she may sit When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, Man for the sword and for the needle she: All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl Thus the hard old king: I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows; At the barrier like a wild horn in a land And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream, I dream'd On his haunches rose the steed, And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. Part sat like rocks: part reel'd but kept their seats: And all the plain,--brand, mace, and shaft, and shield Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd |