You must be sad; for though it is to Heaven,
'Tis hard to yield a little girl of seven.
Alas, for me 'tis hard my grief to rule,
Who only met her as she went to school; ...
I thought to do a deed of chivalry,
An act of worth, which haply in her sight
Who was my mistress should recorded be
And of the nations. And, when thus the fight
Faltered and men once bold with faces white
Turned this and that way in excuse to flee,
I only stood, and by the foeman's might
Was overborne and mangled cruelly.
... Read complete poem