XII
Sir PALAMEDE the Saracen
Follows the Head to gloomy halls
Of sterile hate, with icy walls.
A woman clucking like a hen
Answers his lordly bugle-calls.
She rees him an ungainly rede
Of ghosts and virgins, doves and wombs,
Of roods and prophecies and tombs—
Old pagan fables run to seed!
Sir Palamede with fury fumes.
So doth the Head that jabbers fast
Against that woman’s tangled tale.
(God’s patience at the end must fail !)
Out sweeps the sword—the blade hath passed
Through all her scraggy farthingale.
“This chatter lends to Thought a zest ”
(Quod he), “but I am all for Act.
Sit here, until your Talk hath cracked
The addled egg in Nature’s nest!”
With that he fled the dismal tract.
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