  [“Nam quis iniquÆ Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se Causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis Plena ipso.”—Juvenal, I. 30.] When Sir Matho lay a-dying and his feet were growing cold, For the fire was out and left the place in gloom, And he could not see the night-light on his cornices of gold And the nurses that were hired for him some grisly gossip told As they lingered in the little dressing-room, There was none to light him candles or to kneel by him and pray And the youth that fed the fire-dogs had packed up and gone away— For where’s the sense of waiting on a man whose days are done? And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run. As Sir Matho lay a-shivering, for Death crept on apace, Came an agÈd woman in the flickering light; Like the women of the village, but he didn’t know her face, Then Sir Matho saw she looked on him and waited his desire And he conjured the poor mis-shapen witch To bring some logs of cedar and of oak to light his fire, For he counted on the pity that is never had for hire And is all the poor possess to give the rich. But she wrung her hands and cried to him, “Ah, Sir, I’ve done the oil Wherewith upon a little stove my mess of greens I boil; And coal is dear, and very dear, and fuel have we none.” And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run. She knelt her at his couch’s foot, he saw her sorrow rise, Her tears bestarred his fair embroidered sheet, She pierced his silken coverlid with pity of her eyes, Her tenderness descended, like the dews of Paradise Or grace of shining chrism, upon his feet— The feet that trod the russet woods and broke the bracken curls; And crushed the purple whinberries, that grow for little girls, When the silly foreign feathers fell a-screaming to his gun. And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run. And her tears recalled Sir Matho to a Woman ’neath a Tree, ’Twas an old pietÀ in his hall below (Bought to pass the time at Christie’s for a song) wherein you see How a Mother holds the Body of her Son upon her knee, But her eyes are red for them that dealt the blow. “This woman has forgiven me, and You forgive,” he cried. |
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