Classic Poem

Hereat with haste Sir Mano took his sword,
And through the Lateran garden they two sped.
Like the tightening and the loosening of a cord,
Whereby a barge is up the river led,
The maiden's hand in his still touched palm
Drew him with fierceness as she onward fled:
Till for their rushing there was total calm:
And passing through a doorway they were hid
In a dark place, suffused with scents of balm.
The may laid hand upon a shutter-lid:
" Behold, and slay the monster: " saying so
The noiseless shutter back in groove she slid,
And showed the room beyond in light: when, lo!
Instead of some grim-visaged cruel man,
And woman in great horror shrinking low,
Or towering high with face by hate drawn wan,
A beautiful young man was there espied
Kneeling before the feet of a woman,
Whose face of beauty o'er him bent soft-eyed:
A rich feast spread, sweet burning scents and wine
Seemed ready, as for bridegroom left with bride.
At sight of which Mano withdrew his eyne:
But, " In and slay him now, " the damsel cried,
" Even as the butcher slays a fatted swine. "
Even as she spoke, there came from the other side
Of that fair room a groan of misery:
A window dropped, and in with hasty stride
A young man walked, and a drawn sword held he:
Whereat the other leaped upon his feet
" Ah, wretch! that hast beguiled my love from me, "
The new man said, " by fraud and cursed deceit! "
And quick they joined in fight with deadly din
But he, that had been kneeling, with such heat
Pressed on the other, that with weapon thin
Full soon he lanced his heart: nay, rather seemed
That other to his death to strive to win,
So soon he fell, so quick his life-blood streamed
Then cried the woman to the conqueror,
" Thou wretch! with whom in dotage I have dreamed
" For one dead moment, thinking thee no more
My father's and my brother's murderer,
Know that I bade thee enter by this door
" Not for love's joys, but death's revenges drear.
And if thy fair looks and false constancy
Wrought me to seem to grant thee thy love-prayer,
" To save my living brother, lo, I see
The effect thereof in this new added blood.
Forgive me, father, brothers! forgive me
" Lorenzo, proved by death a lover good,
Whom I have sent to death: ah, for that death
Thus Constance puts away her womanhood. "
Hereat with stabbing knife and hissing breath
On him she flies; who keeps her well at bay,
And turneth with his sword, and parryeth.
All which was done more quick than words can say,
And Mano long before the last word here
Was in the midst, and mingled with the fray:
He sought that man; who, stout and void of fear,
Held him full long; and up and down they fought,
And many cruel wounds between them were:
But at the last the man to ground was brought:
Yet thence again, when Mano nearer drew,
Springing, that lady for a shield upcaught;
Who, being swung on high between the two,
Cried, " Smite and spare not, even though I die. "
But Mano, her avoiding, smote him through,
And with his own stroke prone on earth did lie
Senseless through bleeding wounds: so lay those three
By one another in that tragedy.
But he who first had fallen, difficultly
Forced his still grasping hands from the waist to the throat
Of that fair woman, that his agony
Might be her strangling: and the same, I wot,
Had happened soon enough, but that the may
Who brought Sir Mano, his hands asunder smote:
Then like a snake uncurled in death he lay.