SIR PALAMEDES, THE SARACEN KNIGHT
The broad stair winds; he follows it;
Dark is the way; the air is blind;
Black, black the blackness of the pit,
The light long blotted out behind!
His sword sweeps out; his keen glance peers
For some shape glimmering through the gloom:
Naught, naught in all that void appears ;
More still, more silent than the tomb!
Yet now the good knight is aware
Of some black force, of some dread throne,
Waiting beneath that awful stair,
Beneath that pit of slippery stone.
Yea! though he sees not anything,
Nor hears, his subtle sense is ’ware
That, lackeyed by the devil-king,
The Beast—the Questing Beast—is there|
So though his heart beats close with fear,
Though horror grips his throat, he goes,
Goes on to meet it, spear to spear, ;
As good knight should, to face his foes.
Nay! but the end is come. Black earth
Belches that peerless Paladin
Up from her gulphs—untimely birth!
—Her horror could not hold him in!
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