No More Learning

"Fast I rode with new-made vows from my angry kinsman's house":
_Toll slowly. _
"What, and would you men should reck that I dared more for love's sake
As a bride than as a spouse?

LXXXII.

"What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb, before all"--
_Toll slowly. _
"That a bride may keep your side while through castle-gate you ride,
Yet eschew the castle-wall? "

LXXXIII.

Ho! the breach yawns into ruin and roars up against her suing--
_Toll slowly. _
With the inarticulate din and the dreadful falling in--
Shrieks of doing and undoing!

LXXXIV.

Twice he wrung her hands in twain, but the small hands closed again.
_Toll slowly. _
Back he reined the steed--back, back! but she trailed along his track
With a frantic clasp and strain.

LXXXV.
Evermore the foemen pour through the crash of window and door--
_Toll slowly. _
And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of "kill! " and
"flee! "
Strike up clear amid the roar.

LXXXVI.

Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, but they closed and clung again--
_Toll slowly. _
While she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon the rood,
In a spasm of deathly pain.

LXXXVII.

She clung wild and she clung mute with her shuddering lips half-shut.
_Toll slowly. _
Her head fallen as half in swound, hair and knee swept on the ground,
She clung wild to stirrup and foot.

LXXXVIII.

Back he reined his steed back-thrown on the slippery coping-stone:
_Toll slowly. _
Back the iron hoofs did grind on the battlement behind
Whence a hundred feet went down:

LXXXIX.

And his heel did press and goad on the quivering flank bestrode--
_Toll slowly. _
"Friends and brothers, save my wife!