The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

SIR PALAMEDES, THE SARACEN KNIGHT To breathe fond prayers ; and (marry !) if Man’s soul were measured by his sighs He need not linger to attain. Nay! while the Beast squats there, above Him, smiling on him; as he vows Wonderful deeds and fruitless flowers, He grows so maudlin in his love That even the knaves of his own house Mock at him in their merry hours. “God’s death!” raged Palamede, not wroth But irritated, “laugh ye so? Am I a jape for scullions ?” His curse came in a flaky froth. He seized a club, with blow on blow Breaking the knave’s unreverent sconce! “Thou mock the Questing Beast I chase, The Questing Beast I love? ’Od’s wounds!” Then sudden from the slave there brake A cachinnation scant of grace, As if a thirty couple hounds Were in his belly! Knight, awake! Ah! well he woke! His love and scorn Grapple in death-throe at his throat. “Lead me away” (quoth he), “ my men! Woe, woe is me was ever born So blind a bat, so gross a goat, As Palamede the Saracen !” 87