Is it guilt to free a lady from her palsied lord, absent and fighting,
terribly abhorred?
He stirs a booted heel and kicks a rolling coal. His spur clinks
on the hearth. Overhead, the rain hammers and chinks. She is so pure
and whole. Only because he has her soul will she resign herself to him,
for where the soul has gone, the body must be given as a sign. He takes her
by the divine right of the only lover. He has sworn to fight her lord,
and wed her after. Should he be overborne, she will die adoring him, forlorn,
shriven by her great love.
Above, the coronet winks in the darkness. Drip -- hiss -- fall the raindrops.
The arras blows out from the wall, and a door bangs in a far-off hall.
The candles swale. In the gale the moat below plunges and spatters.
Will the lady lose courage and not come?
The rain claps on a loosened rafter.
Is that laughter?
The room is filled with lisps and whispers. Something mutters.
One candle drowns and the other gutters. Is that the rain
which pads and patters, is it the wind through the winding entries
which chatters?
The state bed is very cold and he is alone.
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