Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
The Man with Three FriendsDora Greenwell (18211882)
T
That slept, there came a heavy cry,
‘Awake, arise! for thou hast slain
A man.’ ‘Yea, have I to mine own pain,’
And malice am I, that naught forecast,
As is the babe innocent.
I hated not, in times past,
Him whom unwittingly I slew.’
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?’
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.
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.
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.’
‘We will go with thee to the place of doom:
There must we leave thee evermore.’
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.’