Dora Greenwell (1821–1882)

(A Story told in the “Gesta Romanorum”)

TO one full sound and quietly

That slept, there came a heavy cry,

“Awake! arise! for thou hast slain

A man.” “Yea, have I to mine own pain,”

He answered; “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 can’st 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, maybe, 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 gained 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 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 Judgment 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.”