SIR PALAMEDES, THE SARACEN KNIGHT
By simple faith, not heathen might,
Catch him, and thus achieve the quest!”
Then quoth that melancholy wight:
“T will believe!” The hermit blessed
His convert : on the horizon
Appears the Beast. ‘To thee the rest!”
He cries, to urge the good knight on.
But no! Sir Palamedes grips
The hermit by the woebegone
Beard of him; then away he rips,
Wood as a maniac, to the West,
Where down the sun in splendour slips,
And where the quarry of the quest
Canters. They run lik e hippogriffs!
Like men pursued, or swine possessed,
Over the dizzy Cretan cliffs
They smash. And lo! it comes to pass
He sees in no dim hieroglyphs,
In knowledge easy to amass,
This hermit (while he drew his breath)
Once dead is like a mangy ass.
Bruised, broken, but not bound to death,
He calls some passing fishermen
To bear him. Presently he saith :
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