Dora Greenwell (1821–1882)

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.’