"When I might meet thee in the bowers of bliss! "No, Theodore! the sport of winds and waves,
"Thy body shall not roll adown the stream, "The sea-wolf's banquet. Conrade, bear with me "The corpse to Orleans, there in hallowed ground "To rest; the priest shall say the sacred prayer,
"And hymn the requiem to his parted soul.
"So shall not Elinor in bitterness
"Lament that no dear friend to her dead child
From the earth they lift
The mournful burden, and along the plain
Pass with slow footsteps to the city gate.
The obedient centinel at Conrade's voice
Admits the midnight travellers; on they pass,
Till in the neighbouring abbey's porch arrived
They rest the lifeless load.
The awakened porter turns the heavy door.
To him the virgin! "Father, from the slain
"On yonder reeking field a dear-lov'd friend
"I bring to holy sepulture: chaunt ye
"The requiem to his soul: to-morrow eve
"Will I return, and in the narrow house
"Behold him laid to rest." The father knew
The mission'd Maid, and humbly bow'd assent,
Now from the city, o'er the shadowy plain,
Backward they bend their way. From silent thoughts
The Maid awakening cried, "There was a time,
"When thinking on my closing hour of life,
"Tho' with resolved mind, some natural fears
"Shook the weak frame: but now the happy hour, "When my emancipated soul shall burst
"The cumberous fetters of mortality,
"Wishful I contemplate. Conrade! my friend,
"My wounded heart would feel another pang
"Should'st thou forsake me!"
"JOAN!" the chief replied,
"Along the weary pilgrimage of life
"Together will we journey, and beguile
"The dreary road, telling with what gay hopes.
"We in the morning eyed the pleasant fields
"Vision'd before; then wish that we had reach'd
"The bower of rest!"
Thus communing they gain'd
The camp, yet hush'd in sleep; there separating,
Each in the post allotted, restless waits
Morning came: dim thro' the shade
The first rays glimmer; soon the brightening clouds
Drink the rich beam, and o'er the landscape spread
The dewy light. The soldiers from the earth
Leap up invigorate, and each his food
Receives, impatient to renew the war.
Dunois his javelin to the Tournelles points,
"Soldiers of France! behold your foes are there!".
As when a band of hunters, round the den
Of some wood-monster, point their spears, elate
In hope of conquest and the future feast;
When on the hospitable board their spoil
Shall smoke, and they, as the rich bowl goes round, Tell to their guests their exploits in the chace; They with their shouts of exultation make
The forest ring; so elevate of heart,
With such loud clamours for the fierce assault
The French prepare. Nor, guarding now the lists
Durst the disheartened English man to man
Meet the close conflict. From the barbican,
Or from the embattled wall they their yeugh bows
Bent forceful, and their death-fraught enginery
Discharged; nor did the Gallic archers cease
With well-directed shafts their loftier foes
To assail behind the guardian pavais fenced,
They at the battlements their arrows aim'd,
Showering an iron storm, whilst o'er the bayle,
The bayle now levell'd by victorous France,
Pass'd the bold troops with all their mangonels;
Or tortoises, beneath whose roofing safe,
They, filling the deep moat, might for the towers
Make fit foundation, or with petraries,
War-wolfs, and beugles, and that murderous sling
The matafund, from whence the ponderous stone
Fled fierce, and made one wound of whom it struck,
Shattering the frame so that no pious hand
Gathering his mangled limbs might him convey
To where his fathers slept: a dreadful train
Prepar'd by Salisbury over the town besieged
To hurl its ruin; but that dreadful train
Must hurl its ruin on the invaders head,
Such retribution righteous heaven decreed.
Nor lie the English trembling, for the fort
Was ably garrison'd. Glacidas, the chief,
A gallant man, sped on from place to place
Cheering the brave; or if the archer's hand,
Palsied with fear, shot wide the ill-aim'd shaft,
Threatening the coward who betray'd himself,
He drove him from the ramparts. In his hand
The chief a cross-bow held; an engine dread
Of such wide-wasting fury, that of yore
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