Classic Poem

To one full sound and silently
That slept, there came a heavy cry,
‘Awake, arise! for thou hast slain
A man.’ ‘Yea, have I to mine own pain,’

He answer'd; ‘but of ill intent
And malice am I, that naught forecast,
As is the babe innocent.
From sudden anger our strife grew:
I hated not, in times past,
Him whom unwittingly I slew.’

‘If it be thus indeed, thy case
Is hard,’ they said; ‘for thou must die,
Unless with the Judge thou canst find grace.
Hast thou, in thine extremity,
Friends soothfast for thee to plead?’

Then said he, ‘I have friends three:
One whom in word and will and deed
From my youth I have served, and loved before
Mine own soul, and for him striven;
To him was all I got given;
And the longer I lived, I have loved him more.

‘And another have I, whom (sooth to tell)
I love as I love my own heart well;
And the third I cannot now call
To mind that ever loved at all
He hath been of me, or in aught served;
And yet, may be, he hath well deserved
That I should love him with the rest.

‘Now will I first to the one loved best.’
Said the first, ‘And art thou so sore bestead?
See, I have gain'd of cloth good store,
So will I give thee three ells and more
(If more thou needest) when thou art dead,
To wrap thee. Now hie thee away from my door:
I have friends many, and little room.’
And the next made answer, weeping sore,
‘We will go with thee to the place of doom:
There must we leave thee evermore.’

‘Alack!’ said the man, ‘and well-a-day!’
But the third only answered, ‘Yea’;
And while the man spake, all to start soon,
Knelt down and buckled on his shoon,
And said, ‘By thee in the Judgement Hall
I will stand and hear what the Judge decree;
And if it be death, I will die with thee,
Or for thee, as it may befall.’