The Blind Harper.

And thus it came my feet were led      To wizard walls that hairy hung     Old as their rock the moss made dead;      And, like a ditch of fire flung     Around it, uncouth flowers red      Thrust spur and fang and tongue.     And here I harped. Did dead men list?      Or was it hollow hinges gnarred     Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist?      And when I thought a face sword-scarred     Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed      At me hands ringed and starred.     And so I sang; for she had leaned      Rare beauty to me, dark and tall;     I sang of Love, whose Court is queened      Of Alinor the virginal,     Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend      Wolf-eyeballs from the wall.     Oh, how I sang! until she laughed      Red lips that made lute harmony;     I sang of knights who fought and quaffed      To Love's own paragon, Marie -     Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft      Was bowed and bent on me.     And I had harped until she wept;      But when I sang of Ermengarde     Of Anjou, - where her Court is kept      By brave, by beauty, and by bard, -     She turned a raven there and swept      Me, like a fury, 'ward.     A bleeding beak had pierced my sight;      A crimson claw each cheek had lined;     One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night      Heaped raven battlements behind     A moat of blazing serpents bright -      And then I wandered blind.