When the devil was judge twixt thee and me?

"He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke—

Now finish me thou 'neath the trysting oak!" ...

The crest of his foeman,—a heart of white

In a bath of fire,—stooped i' the night;

Stooped and laughed as his sword he swung,

Then galloped away with a laugh on his tongue....

But who is she in the gray, wet dawn,

'Mid the autumn shades like a shadow wan?

Who kneels, one hand on her straining breast,

One hand on the dead man's bosom pressed?

Her face is dim as the dead's; as cold

As his tarnished harness of steel and gold.

O Lady Maurine! O Lady Maurine!

What boots it now that regret is keen?

That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow

What boots it now? what boots it now?...

She has haled him under the trysting oak,

The huge old oak that the creepers cloak.

She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms,

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