The Duel

"I am here to time, you see;     The glade is well-screened - eh? - against alarm;      Fit place to vindicate by my arm      The honour of my spotless wife,      Who scorns your libel upon her life      In boasting intimacy!      "'All hush-offerings you'll spurn,     My husband. Two must come; one only go,'      She said. 'That he'll be you I know;      To faith like ours Heaven will be just,      And I shall abide in fullest trust      Your speedy glad return.'"      "Good. Here am also I;     And we'll proceed without more waste of words      To warm your cockpit. Of the swords      Take you your choice. I shall thereby      Feel that on me no blame can lie,      Whatever Fate accords."      So stripped they there, and fought,     And the swords clicked and scraped, and the onsets sped;      Till the husband fell; and his shirt was red      With streams from his heart's hot cistern. Nought      Could save him now; and the other, wrought      Maybe to pity, said:      "Why did you urge on this?     Your wife assured you; and 't had better been      That you had let things pass, serene      In confidence of long-tried bliss,      Holding there could be nought amiss      In what my words might mean."      Then, seeing nor ruth nor rage     Could move his foeman more - now Death's deaf thrall -      He wiped his steel, and, with a call      Like turtledove to dove, swift broke      Into the copse, where under an oak      His horse cropt, held by a page.      "All's over, Sweet," he cried     To the wife, thus guised; for the young page was she.      "'Tis as we hoped and said 't would be.      He never guessed . . . We mount and ride      To where our love can reign uneyed.      He's clay, and we are free."